Douglas F. Hager, Ph.D.
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.
Theodora S. Ross, M.D., Ph.D.
Theodora Ross is a scientist, author, and medical oncologist with a passion for cancer genetics and cancer prevention. She is currently Vice President of Early Oncology Research and Development at AbbVie, Inc. and site head in San Francisco, CA. Before to this she served as Vice President of Global Development and head of Precision Medicine at Amgen, Inc. In her first role in the pharma industry, she served as Vice President of Translational Medicine at Merck Research Laboratories. In all of these assignments, she has been helping lead the worldwide efforts to bring innovative medicines from laboratories to clinics.
Before her work in industry, for more than 8 years Dr. Ross was Professor of Internal Medicine in the Oncology Division and Director of the Cancer Genetics Program at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. In addition to her clinical role caring for patients with hereditary genetic abnormalities that place them at elevated risk for cancer, she led her laboratory, which investigated the biology of the BRCA1 gene. Dr. Ross maintains her affiliation with UT Southwestern as Adjunct Professor of Internal Medicine.
Prior to UT Southwestern, Dr. Ross spent 12 years as a clinician and researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she cared for patients with breast cancer and her laboratory investigated the basic biology of cancer cells, the role of endocytosis in cancer and how leukemias respond to or resist targeted therapies.
Dr. Ross earned her M.D. and Ph.D. in 1993 from the Washington University Medical Scientist Training Program in St. Louis. She completed her medical residency in Boston at Harvard University’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, followed by a fellowship in oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
In addition to her scholarly publications, Dr. Ross has written articles for the lay reader published in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Psychology Today. She authored an award-winning book released in February 2016 by Penguin Random House/Avery, A Cancer in the Family: Take Control of Your Genetic Inheritance. Through patient stories, the book empowers readers to face their genetic heritage and make decisions that will keep them and their families healthy.