Our Leadership

Leadership Team

Executives
Directors

Executives

Damian O’CONNELL

Chief Executive Officer

Damian O’CONNELL

Chief Executive Officer

Prof. Damian O’Connell heads EDDC as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He also holds additional positions including Adjunct Professor at the University College Cork, Ireland, Member of the Advisory Board SingHealth Investigational Medicine Unit in Singapore, and a board member of the INFANT research centre in Ireland. In addition, he is a member of several medical societies. These include the British Pharmacological Society, the Drug Safety Executive Council (DSEC), the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the American College of Clinical Pharmacology, the American Society of Pharmacometrics, the Irish Association of Pharmacologists, the Irish Cardiac Society, and the British Hypertension Society.

Having started his career in the Industry in 1998, Prof. O’Connell has previously has held senior positions within Bayer, Pfizer Research & Development, Parke Davis, Elan Pharmaceuticals & Neurex. Apart from his extensive experience in the Industry, he has also held positions in academia. Prof. O’Connell has been a Medical Faculty member of The University of Virginia Health Sciences Centre, and Professor in the Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics Department at University College Cork, Ireland.

Prof. Damian O’Connell received both his M.D. and Ph.D. from the National University of Ireland. He is also a Fellow of both The Royal Society of Medicine and The Royal Academy of Medicine (Ireland).

Hwee Ching ANG

Deputy Chief Executive Officer

Hwee Ching ANG

Deputy Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Hwee Ching Ang, is Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCE) at EDDC. She was previously acting COO of NTUitive, the innovation and enterprise company of the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (ranked World’s Top Young University, 2013-2018 by QS).

Prior to this, she was Head of Bayer’s Innovation Centre Singapore, where she was part of the Global External Innovation and Alliances team and responsible for partnering activities in Asia Pacific (excluding China, Japan). Before joining Bayer in 2011, Dr. Ang was Deputy Director at the Biomedical Sciences Industry Partnership Office, a multi-agency office set up to work with biomedical sciences companies and drive partnering activities with Singapore institutions.

Over the years, Dr. Ang has set up and managed a number of public-private research partnerships from both academic and industry sides. She was previously responsible for Business Development, Project Management and Alliance Management at the Lilly Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery and at the A*STAR Experimental Therapeutics Centre where she was part of the start-up team led by Prof. Sir David Lane. She has also worked on strategic initiatives to build the Singapore biomedical industry and was part of a team evaluating grant and equity support for biotech companies while at the Singapore Economic Development Board.

Hwee Ching completed her undergraduate studies in Chemical Engineering and Finance, and a master’s degree in Biotechnology at the University of Pennsylvania (US) and her Ph.D. studies with Prof. Sir Alan Fersht at the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering at Cambridge University (UK).

Weidong HAO

Chief Scientific Officer

Weidong HAO

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr Weidong HAO, Ph.D., MBA, is the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of the Experimental Drug Development Centre (EDDC), Singapore’s national platform for drug discovery and development.

Weidong is a seasoned executive and scientist who has held leadership positions at Pfizer, MedImmune, AstraZeneca, Hansoh Bio and Zencore Biologics. He has amassed over 20 years of discovery experience in different therapeutic areas, such as antiviral, oncology, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. He established Hansoh Bio’s Biotherapeutics group in the USA with an integrated antibody drug discovery platform starting from target evaluation, assay development, lead isolation, characterization, and engineering to antibody drug conjugate (ADC) generation and characterization. He was the CSO and SVP of Operations, Head of Global Business Development and Marketing at Zencore Biologics prior to joining EDDC.
Weidong is an inventor of 9 patents, and was a key contributor to AstraZeneca’s AZD3427, starting from project initiation to candidate drug and IND filing. AZD3427 is currently in Phase IIb clinical trial for heart failure and pulmonary hypertension.

A graduate of Tsinghua University in China, Weidong obtained his Ph.D. from SUNY at Stony Brook, and his MBA from UCSD.

Soo Yei HO

Chief of Staff

Soo Yei HO

Chief of Staff

Dr Soo Yei HO is Chief of Staff at EDDC, where she collaborates with the CEO in setting and managing the company’s overall strategy for people and operations. Her role involves translating the operation and hiring strategy into actionable steps, implementing organization-wide goal setting, performance management, and annual operations planning. She also manages the resources within the organization in the areas of budget, portfolio, and personnel. Additionally, she assumes the role of overseeing the daily operations at EDDC.

Before assuming her current position, Soo Yei held the position of Acting Director of Discovery Chemistry, where her responsibilities included overseeing medicinal chemistry activities and establishing chemical biology capabilities. She was previously Associate Director of Project Management at EDDC, where she led the Project Management Office and oversaw EDDC’s portfolio of projects and platforms.

Soo Yei joined the Experimental Therapeutics Centre in 2011, where she rose through the ranks to become a Group Leader (Medicinal Chemistry). During her tenure, she worked on several small molecule drug discovery projects in the areas of oncology and anti-infectives. She is the inventor of ETC-159, Singapore’s first publicly funded drug, which is currently in Phase 1B clinical trial. For her outstanding contributions to the Wnt-porcupine project, she received the A*STAR Borders Award in 2016. Soo Yei holds more than 20 composition-matter patents and has published many research papers in the field of medicinal chemistry.

Before joining A*STAR, Soo Yei worked as a Research Scientist at two US Biotech companies, FORMA Therapeutics Inc. (2008-2011) and Infinity Pharmaceuticals (2005-2007).

Soo Yei obtained her Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry at the National University of Singapore.

Directors

Kantharaj ETHIRAJULU

Asset Development Leader

Kantharaj ETHIRAJULU

Asset Development Leader

Dr. Kantharaj Ethirajulu is an Asset Development Leader at EDDC. He is responsible for leading preclinical and early clinical development programs. Dr. Kantharaj brings with him 25 years of pharmaceutical R&D experience in DMPK and Early drug development. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed articles and currently serving on the editorial board of Current Drug Metabolism and DML journals.

Prior to joining A*STAR, Dr. Kantharaj has had the chance to serve in various leadership positions in several organizations. He has worked at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical R&D as Team Leader of the ADME/Tox department, and AstraZeneca R&D as Head of DMPK and Bioanalytical Chemistry. As Head of Preclinical development in S*BIO he contributed to preclinical development efforts and played a key role in the development of Pacritinib (Jak2 inhibitor), Pracinostat (HDAC inhibitor) and Zotiraciclib (pan-CDK inhibitor), SB2343 (PI3K & mTOR inhibtor) Oncology assets.

Until recently, he worked in A*STAR D3 as Head of Technical R & D,and has contributed to the preclinical development of gH1-Qbeta vaccine (H1N1), ETC-206 (Mnk), ETC-159 and ETC-569 (Wnt-porcupine), ETC-670 programs.

Dr. Kantharaj obtained his Ph.D. (1995) in Organic Mass spectrometry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Veronica DIERMAYR

Asset Development Leader

Veronica DIERMAYR

Asset Development Leader

Veronica is a molecular biologist with more than 20 years of experience in in-vitro and in-vivo biomarker work and its clinical implementation with work experience in big pharma (Novartis Research Institute, Vienna) as well as in biotech setting (S*BIO Pte Ltd.).

Veronica has wide translational experience working in preclinical and early clinical development especially for oncology drugs. At S*BIO, she headed the animal pharmacology and the biomarker group. She was project leader for the HDAC inhibitor pracinostat up to Phase 2 (currently in Phase 3) and provided all PK/PD data for pacritinib (Jak2 inhibitor under review for marketing approval). In her previous roles at A*STAR D3 as Head of Project Management and Head of Development, she defined the biomarker strategies for all clinical compounds and oversaw their clinical implementation. For ETC-206 (Mnk) and ETC-159 (Wnt/porcupine) proof of mechanism in first-in-human studies was successfully demonstrated with chosen PD biomarkers. She also initiated the development of an RT-PCR-based diagnostic assay to be used for patient selection in the ETC-159 Phase 1B trial.

Veronica obtained her PhD at the University of Vienna (Austria) and has since contributed to several successful US-INDs, Singapore Clinical Trial Authorisations and IRB approvals for collected human samples. She has published over 25 research articles in peer-reviewed journals and has filed a patent for a diagnostic test. Veronica is currently the Director of Biomarker Discovery and Development at EDDC.

Venkateshan SRIRANGAM PRATIVADIBHAYANKARAM

Medical Director

Venkateshan SRIRANGAM PRATIVADIBHAYANKARAM

Medical Director

Venkateshan Srirangam is currently the Medical director at EDDC. He earned his medical degree and completed a rotating internship at Mysore Medical College in Mysore, India. He is a qualified medical physician with more than 16 years of academic and corporate clinical research experience.

Prior to working in EDDC he was working as Global Clinical Director at Abbott Labs where he was working to develop global clinical strategy to support organic and inorganic growth through in-house projects, geo-expansion, and licensing and acquisition. He has previously served as a clinical lead for several discovery projects providing clinical support in cross functional discovery teams, and clinical support for several IND submissions. He has experience working with several novel targets including OX40, mPGES, TrkA, TRPA1 and several novel platforms like bispecific antibodies, fusion peptides, antibody drug conjugates and drug-device combinations. His research areas include immuno-oncology, pain and inflammation, diabetes, infectious disease among others.

Venkateshan Srirangam is currently the Medical director at EDDC. He is responsible to plan and implement clinical strategies to translate Singapore research into innovative therapeutics.

Christophe BODENREIDER

Director, External Innovation

Christophe BODENREIDER

Director, External Innovation

Christophe is Director of the EDDC Academic Research Organisation (EARO) and the Target Translation Consortium (TTC). In this role, he leads the fee-for-service arm of EDDC (EARO) and the screening and protein structure groups. In addition, Christophe supports the TTC and oversees the development of EDDC’s fibrotic diseases portfolio.

Christophe has 15 years of experience in R&D. He started his career in drug discovery at the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD), where he worked on the discovery of antivirals targeting the dengue virus. He later established NITD’s malaria laboratory and led several preclinical projects. He ended his stint at NITD leading the anti-malarial development effort and NITD’s screening platforms. Christophe participated in or led three programmes that are now in clinical trials (Cipargamin, Ganaplacide and INE963). After NITD, Christophe joined Kemin Industries where he was in charge of the development and commercialization of enzyme products for animal feed.

Christophe is a biophysicist by training and graduated from the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

Hannes HENTZE

Associate Director, Translational Sciences

Hannes HENTZE

Associate Director, Translational Sciences

Dr. Hannes Hentze currently holds the positon of Associate Director of the Translational Sciences. He is responsible for the Biomarker Development, Mass Spectrometry, and in vivo pharmacology functions of EDDC.

Having established his networks and built his knowledge of the industry across 20 years in various roles, Dr. Hentze brings to the table 20 years of experience in academic research, biotech companies (S*BIO, ES Cell International, ASLAN), and in the pharmaceutical industry (MSD).

A pre-clinical scientist and in vivo pharmacologist by training, Dr Hentze’s expertise includes preclinical oncology and diabetes mouse models, integration of innovative biomarkers in pre-clinical programs, large animal models for cardiovascular disease and dyslipidaemia, as well as rodent models for cell therapy applications. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed articles, reviews and book chapters in the areas of liver disease, redox regulation, stem cell therapy, diabetes and oncology (H = 27)

Dr. Hannes Hentze holds a PhD in Biochemical Pharmacology from the University of Konstanz (Germany). In addition, he has recently obtained an executive MBA from INSEAD.

Snow LEE

Associate Director, Discovery Biology

Snow LEE

Associate Director, Discovery Biology

Snow Lee is an associate director at EDDC. She has extensive experience throughout the early drug discovery process, from target nomination to drug identification and optimization. Her PhD and postdoctoral work focused on the modulation of epigenetic factors and phosphatases for cancer therapeutics. Following that, she joined Chugai Pharmabody Research as a project leader for developing biologics in oncology. She formulates project strategies, design experimental studies and coordinates different functional teams to ensure that project milestones are fulfilled. She holds several patents for both small molecule and biologics therapeutics, and is proficient in the development of new biologics platform technologies for intractable targets.

Hsin-Ee CHIA

Associate Director, Business Development (Alliance Management), TTC

Hsin-Ee CHIA

Associate Director, Business Development (Alliance Management), TTC

Chia Hsin-Ee is Associate Director, Alliance Management at EDDC, where she co-coordinates the Target Translation Consortium.

She has spent 14 years in the Biomedical Sciences industry, starting from the Economic Development Board (EDB) where she supported the development of the pharmaceutical and contract research services industry in Singapore. During this time, she also had a stint in EDB’s Frankfurt office to promote investments from pharmaceutical MNCs across Europe. In 2006, she moved to the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) where, together with the then Executive Director, Prof Judith Swain, she set-up the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS). In addition to running the operations and industry alliance activities of SICS, Hsin-Ee also concurrently supported the establishment of the Biomedical Sciences Industry Partnership Office (BMS IPO), National Breeding Centre (re-named InVivos Pte Ltd) and the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign programme (now Singapore Biodesign). In 2013, she left A*STAR and took on the role of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Manager at EDIS, where she ran a non-traditional CSR outfit called EDIS Cares and had the opportunity to work with over 8 charity partners. This effort was spun out in 2018 as Learning Vessels, a social enterprise, which Hsin-Ee continues to run part-time.

Hsin-Ee completed her degree in Computational Biology at Carnegie Mellon University (US).

Hsiang Ling TEO

Associate Director, EARO

Hsiang Ling TEO

Associate Director, EARO

Dr. Hsiang Ling Teo, is an accomplished structural biologist with over 15 years of research experience. As Head of Strategy Planning (Special Projects) at EDDC, she is responsible for driving the RIE2025 Strategy Planning and Strategic Projects. Concurrently, as Acting Associate Director of Innovations, she will help to steer the Innovative platforms towards commercialisation. Before joining EDDC, she was the Programme Director at NTU Institute of Structural Biology, spearheading the establishment of a new dedicated laboratory with state-of-the-art structural biology facility for nearly 80 research staff.

Hsiang Ling completed her Ph.D. studies in Structural biology at the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology (UK). Upon finishing her graduate studies, she joined IMCB/ASTAR working on NFκB signalling and its role in cancer biology. This is followed by a second postdoctoral stint in NTU working on anti-inflammatory drug targets using structure based drug design.

Over the years, Dr. Teo has built up extensive research experience in a wide range of disciplines, from protein x-ray crystallography to mouse knock-out models and has managed and collaborated in multiple research projects in academia.

Klement FOO

Head, Discovery Chemistry

Klement FOO

Head, Discovery Chemistry