Joseph Cherian

Passionate drug discovery professional with more than 17 years of experience working together with multifunctional teams within the organization as well as collaborating with external investigators and institutions. Successfully led many projects to discover preclinical development compounds for the benefit of patients in the area of oncology and infectious diseases. Experienced with managing a team of passionate drug hunters while setting up their career development goals and managing function budget. Willing to utilise my transferable skills to work in other areas.

• Foster collaborations and build the company pipeline by finding additional projects to maintain the small molecule portfolio
• Provide strategic inputs to the project teams and senior management.
• Function as a drug discovery expert in providing guidance to drug discovery projects of external PIs, funded by grants. 
• Identify and derive additional assets from the existing asset class, securing IP space and creating value for the institute, while using minimum resources.
• Directed and delivered an orally bioavailable SARS CoV-2 protease inhibitor by guiding and mentoring the project team; The development compound was out-licensed to a biotech in Jan 2022 in a multi-million dollar deal; the team also identified a back-up scaffold with a broad spectrum antiviral activity.
• Managed the medicinal chemistry division and budget; ensured adequate equipment support for the team.
• Accountable for the small molecule drug discovery approach of multiple projects; worked together with the project teams ensuring proper project flowchart as well as go/no go decision criteria.
• Responsible for setting up and tracking medicinal chemistry function goals; supervising a team of 14 staffs including 6 Ph.Ds to deliver the institute KPIs. Ensured proper resource allocation for the projects and secured additional manpower by outsourcing.
• Played a key part in shaping up small molecule portfolio.
• Established consultancy with seasoned experts in the field and facilitated periodical discussions between the consultants and the team.

Revamped hit finding approaches in the organization, by including virtual screening capability and exploring DEL screening to the existing revamped HTS and fragment based library

Ph. D in organic chemistry