Bug Testing

Philip Tagari is Vice President of Research (Therapeutic Discovery) at Amgen Inc., the world’s largest independent biotechnology company. His global laboratories are responsible for multi-modality platforms resulting in the successful progression of over 30 innovative molecules into clinical development in recent years. Before joining Amgen in 1998, he was a Research Fellow at Merck Frosst (Canada) Inc., where he contributed to several eicosanoid and inflammatory biology programs. Tagari is an active member of Amgen Ventures and has participated in numerous research collaborations. He is also Board Chair for Amgen Biopharmaceutical Research and Development (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., a board member of MATWIN (Maturation & Accelerating Translation With Industry) in France, and a Director of CQDM (Consortium Quebecois sur la Decouverte du Medicament; Quebec Consortium for Drug Discovery). Tagari holds a Master’s in Natural Sciences from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University (UK).

“The frontier of innovation for the life science industry is defined by those who can bring sense to the overwhelming amount of data points generated every day. I am impressed by BenchSci’s ability and vision to do exactly that as it will not only improve research efficiencies but also bring the scientific community novel insights to complex biologic systems.”

Philip Larsen is the Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. He joined Bayer in July 2019, before which he was Chief Scientific Officer at Grünenthal. Before that, he served as Chief Scientific Officer, German Hub at Sanofi. Larsen has 27 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience focusing on diabetes and obesity, with 20 years of leading research divisions. After a few years of work at NovoNordisk and Zealand Pharma, he cofounded the Danish biotechnology company Rheoscience in 2001. In 2008, he took up a position as Chief Scientific Officer for Diabetes Research at Eli Lilly, Indianapolis, USA, before returning to Europe as Vice President for Early Clinical Development in CVM at AstraZeneca. He holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. in neuroendocrinology, both from the University of Copenhagen.

“I’m delighted to be able to work with the outstanding team at BenchSci who are broadly applying cutting edge AI technologies to accelerate the discovery of new therapeutics.”

Steve Hitchcock is the Chief Scientific Officer at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. He is responsible for the global research organization at Takeda across the four therapeutic areas of neuroscience, oncology, gastrointestinal diseases, and rare diseases. Hitchcock joined Takeda as part of their acquisition of Envoy Therapeutics, where he was the Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery. Before Takeda, he served in senior leadership positions in the research organizations at both Eli Lilly and Amgen. He also served as an adjunct professor in the Department of Molecular Therapeutics at Scripps Florida, a division of The Scripps Research Institute. Hitchcock completed a NATO postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University and holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Nottingham (U.K.).