David J. Hayes, PhD

Biochemist with 30+ years of early-stage drug discovery

United States

English

Academic affiliation

Experienced leader of drug discovery projects from target ID to IND in large pharma. In addition developed services for profiling kinases, ion channels and cellular readouts. Gained good working knowledge of PROTACs.

Contact

Individual

Company

Skills

High throughput screening

Lead optimization

Preclinical development

Translational biomarkers

PROTACs assay

Preclinical development

Team management (20-100 people)

Competitive assesment, BI

Enzyme targeting

Fibrosis

Cardiovascular diseases

About

I have been fortunate in my career to work in large pharma bringing new medicines closer to patients and in tools-based vendors to develop CRO services for kinases, cell signaling, and biomarker discovery. I also held positions in business development for these vendors to place these services in the context of pharma’s needs. I also conducted several due diligence projects and worked with corporate to secure acquisitions of companies of technology platforms. Over the last few years I have built expertise in the repositioning of parked clinical assets with ML/AI companies or academics.

Work experience

Chief of Staff - Discovery Sciences

Company:

AstraZeneca (Cambridge, UK)

Duration:

Jan 2015

Dec 2017

present

Discovery Sciences (550 FTEs) conducted all the early-stage drug discovery projects for small molecules, ASOs, and PROTACs from HTS to structural biology. As chief of staff, I oversaw the operational aspects of the department, managing governance meetings, oversight of the budget, and staff development in partnership with HR.

Senior Director - Discovery Sciences

Company:

AstraZeneca (Boston, MA)

Duration:

Jan 2018

Aug 2022

present

I collaborated with academic teams and ML/AI biotech companies to reposition “parked” Phase II clinical assets in rare diseases and neurological conditions. I identified technology gaps and emerging scientific areas and bought external projects to AZ or raised internal funding to secure three-year Post-Doc projects. I co-led an Incubator lab at AZ, housing several start-ups, and also served as a mentor/business consultant.

Consultant

Company:

Corpe Hackett Consulting LLC

Duration:

Sep 2022

present

I provide insights into strategy development, go-to-market strategy, and technology fit for early-stage drug discovery (target ID to IND). In addition, I served as VP of R&D and CBO in start-ups. Member of SAB for several biotech companies.

Education

University of London

Degree:

B.Sci.

Year of degree awarded:

1979

University of London

Degree:

Ph.D.

Year of degree awarded:

1982

Publications

Chapter “Role of Industry” in Drug Repositioning Royal Society of Chemistry (2022) Edited D. Cavalla

Case STUDIES

Preparation for Investment Discussions

I consult for a company developing a non-coding RNA platform based on sequencing and ML/AI to identify differences between healthy and diseased states. The company desired to pivot to a drug discovery enterprise building on the insights gained from patients. I helped develop the strategy to transition the technology platform to a drug discovery platform and built slide decks for use with potential investors or partners to gain investment or collaborations in large pharma. I also conducted competitor analysis for specific indications and companies with similar technology platforms.

Cardiac Safety Solutions

I consulted for a start-up that developed two technologies that utilized hESCs driven to cardiomyocytes to study electrical circuits or high throughput cell death assay. I convinced the co-founders to concentrate on using the cardiomyocytes to measure electrical circuits, which is important for cardiac safety profiling. They had a unique way of driving the cardiomyocytes to an adult phenotype rather than the typical fetal isotype. These mature cardiomyocytes were used in the gold-standard technique of patch-clamping to measure critical currents. I helped identify KoLs in pharma to serve as beta testers for this new cardiac safety service. I helped write and secure funding (from the State Innovation fund) to set up the service. I designed the website offering and various informational brochures.

Synthetic Biology – Protein Expression Delivery

Synthetic biology is still an emerging area of novel science still to largely to be adopted by large pharma. Ideally, in pharma, the human body can be used as a source of beneficial protein expression. Designing circuits is well established, but control and coupling to endogenous signal transduction elements were unavailable. I designed a circuit that used a surface receptor coupled to the JAK/STAT signal transduction pathway to sense a ligand (cytokine) that increased in the disease state to the expression of a neutralizing antibody. I secured funding for an AstraZeneca post-doc to work on this project and use electroporation to achieve ligand-driven antibody production in skeletal muscle. If the project pans out, the body can be used as a drug delivery system that responds to disease ligands to manufacture neutralizing antibodies.

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