ACS hosts virtual gathering for pharma leaders

On Feb. 23, the American Chemical Society held a virtual ACS Pharma Leaders meeting. Thirty-four biopharma industry leaders, representing 17 firms, participated in the meeting. This event is a complement to the annual face-to-face ACS Pharma Leaders meeting that has been held since 2003.

The general topic was “What Are We Learning from COVID-19?” Wendy Young, senior vice president of small-molecule drug discovery at Genentech, served as the moderator, and ACS CEO Thomas Connelly delivered welcoming remarks. Speakers included Sylvie Sakata, head of external research solutions at Pfizer; Oliver Thiel, executive director of process development drug substance technologies and pivotal and commercial synthetics at Amgen; William Morris, senior research scientist at Merck & Co.; and Richard Mackman, vice president of medicinal chemistry at Gilead Sciences.