Douglas Hager was the Head of Project Management at Novartis Oncology, responsible for one of the largest cancer therapy portfolio and pipeline across the biopharmaceutical industry. He brings to CPI 35 years of experience in global project management, drug development and in-licensing.
Dr. Hager obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School. After graduating, he worked at Procter and Gamble, where his research led to several patented innovations. Following studies on drug delivery systems at Alcon Laboratories, he joined Novartis (then Sandoz) as Director of Drug Delivery Research. One primary focus was the development of Sandostatin LAR, where his explorative approach across the traditional boundaries of disease disciplines – pioneering at the time – expanded the medical benefit of a therapy once intended for endocrine disorders to also become a breakthrough for patients with certain types of cancer. Quickly advancing through roles of increasing responsibilities, Dr. Hager was appointed Vice President and Global Head of Oncology Project Management. Under his leadership, Novartis’ cancer therapeutic pipeline more than tripled, and innovative products – including the hormonal breast cancer therapy Femara, the first targeted cancer therapy Glivec (Gleevec), and the supportive therapy Zometa – advanced reliably along the complex research and development process from basic research to health authority approval, benefitting millions of patients across the world, and defining new standards of medical care.
Dr. Hager’s achievements include building an integrated biopharmaceutical Research and Development Department at Novartis in Asia that created resource synergies of global drug development programs and accelerated broad patient access to important therapies across geographies, and beyond the Western Region. Furthermore, his ability to establish international medical research partnerships and licensing agreements allowed critical therapy candidates (such as JAK and MEK inhibitors) to be developed efficiently and faster, and accelerated their availability to patients in urgent medical need.