Dr. Alastair J.J. Wood, drug development authority, frequent advisor to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and former Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research at Vanderbilt University, was recently named to the Board of Directors of the Critical Path Institute. Wood, whose numerous honors include membership to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science, is widely considered a leading international expert on drug safety and drug development.
“Dr. Wood brings innovative solutions to the critical problems facing the biomedical enterprise today,” said Dr. Raymond Woosley, President and Chief Executive Officer, Critical Path Institute. “Alastair’s experience, especially his role advising the FDA on difficult safety issues such as Vioxx and heart safety, will provide invaluable guidance to the Institute.”
Dr. Wood has authored over 300 scientific papers and comes to the Critical Path Institute’s Board with more than 30 years’ experience in medicine and clinical pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, most recently as Associate Dean of External Affairs. He is now the managing director of Symphony Capital, LLC, a private equity firm that manages over $315 million of investments in the clinical development of novel biopharmaceutical products.
Dr. Wood is currently Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medical School. He has chaired the FDA’s Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee, and recently chaired the FDA Advisory Committee on Cox-2 inhibitors. He previously served as a member of the Cardiovascular and Renal Advisory Committee of the FDA, and the FDA’s Nonprescription Drugs Advisory Committee.
Dr. Wood has been a member of and chaired National Institutes of Health review committees, served on the editorial boards of four major journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, and between 1992 and 2004 was Drug Therapy Editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.
About the Critical Path Institute
Headquartered in Tucson, Arizona with offices in Rockville, Maryland, the Critical Path Institute was established in 2005 as a publicly funded, nonprofit research and education institute to enable collaborations between scientists from the FDA, industry and academia. The Critical Path Institute’s mission is to help implement the FDA’s Critical Path Initiative by developing faster, safer and smarter pathways to new medical products. Visit www.C-Path.org for more information.