Craig Wegner

Biography

With more than 30 years of academic and biopharmaceutical research and development experience, Craig is Head of the Boston Emerging Innovations Unit, Scientific Partnering & Alliances, within AstraZeneca’s IMED Biotech Unit. He joined AstraZeneca in 2012 and currently champions an internal team responsible for the generation, prioritisation, and validation of repositioning ideas for small and large molecule compounds. Craig manages AstraZeneca’s partnership with the NIH/NCATS Discovering New Therapeutic Uses for Existing Molecules programme and Taiwan’s National Research Program for Biopharmaceuticals (NRPB) open innovation programme, among other alliances. He is also the co-creator and lead of AstraZeneca’s expanding Open Innovation platform, which partners the company’s assets and know-how with the disease insight and expertise of academic physician- and basic-scientists to advance pioneering research and therapies collaboratively for the benefit of patients. After completing his PhD in Biomedical/Medical Engineering at the University of California, Davis, in 1981, Craig has spent the past 25 years working in senior executive roles for major global biopharmaceutical companies, including nine years at Pfizer, gaining extensive expertise in multiple therapeutic areas, with a focus on respiratory and inflammatory diseases. Craig has more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and 20 book chapters/review articles to his name and is the inventor on six patents. He is also the critical contributor on five marketed drugs: Atrovent; Mucosolvan; Spiriva; Hytrin; and Aluvia.

Research Interest

BIOCHEMISTRY