Dr. Alastair J.J. Wood of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine is giving up his academic career to become managing director of Symphony Capital, an investment group that buys clinical-stage biotech drugs and helps usher them through the pipeline to regulatory approval. Biotech companies ink deals that give them buy-back rights. Dr. Wood has been a long-time adviser to the FDA on new drugs and headed an expert committee that was called on to decide the fate of several Cox-2 inhibitors. In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Wood said he had been an adviser to Symphony since 2002 and relished the chance to work with drug developers on therapeutic research.
- read the report from The New York Times