Three pharmaceutical and life sciences industry leaders: Michael Boyne, PhD, Vice President, Product Development and Analytics, Cour Pharmaceutical Development Company, Inc.; Christopher J. O’Connell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Waters Corporation; and Michael O’Shea, Founder, The O’Shea Firm, recently joined the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute’s Executive Advisory Board (EAB).

“We are very pleased to welcome these talented individuals to our board,” says Thomas O’Halloran, Founding Director, Chemistry of Life Processes Institute. “Their collective expertise in drug development and the biotech research industry will help aid and advance our mission to bring new discoveries to society.”

The EAB is integral to the growth and success of the Institute. Founded in 2005, the Board includes business leaders, entrepreneurs, researchers, physicians and tech experts providing CLP faculty members with a gateway to the world of transdisciplinary biomedical discovery, innovation and education. Board members contribute their individual strengths to the Institute in the form of business advice and assistance in commercializing innovations, insight into educational programs, feedback on operations, strategic plans, marketing, fundraising, and individual philanthropy.

Michael Boyne, PhD, Vice President, Product Development and Analytics, Cour Pharmaceutical Development Company, Inc.

Michael Boyne is the VP of Product Development and Analytics at Cour Pharmaceuticals. In this role, he oversees the overall pipeline and all aspects of CMC and R&D. Before joining Cour, he was a Senior Consultant at BioTechLogic where he advised pharmaceutical manufacturers on drug development and CMC strategy, including drafting, reviewing, and authoring Pharmaceutical Quality/CMC sections (Module 3) of the CTD for regulatory submissions.

Prior to consulting, Boyne was a Research Chemist in the Division of Pharmaceutical Analysis at the US Food and Drug Administration where he established a laboratory developing and applying modern analytical technologies for the evaluation and regulation of complex drug products.  Boyne has authored over 40 peer-reviewed publications and is an internationally recognized speaker on the application of modern analytical technologies to drug development. He is the past chair of the 15th Symposium on the Practical Applications of Mass Spectrometry in the Biotechnology Industry and sits on the organizing committee for the CASSS meeting on Cell and Gene Therapies.

Boyne was a postdoctoral scholar at Washington University Medical School in Saint Louis where he was an American Cancer Society/Canary Foundation Fellow in Early Detection. He has a BA in Chemistry from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Christopher J. O’Connell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Waters Corporation

Christopher O’Connell was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors for Waters Corporation in January 2018, in addition to his position as Chief Executive Officer, which he assumed upon joining Waters in September 2015.  Waters (NYSE: WAT) develops, manufactures and distributes innovative analytical technologies for a broad range of life science, food, environmental and industrial customers globally. Waters is committed to advancing science to enable better medical therapies, safer food and a higher quality world.

Previously, O’Connell served at Medtronic plc for twenty-one years, most recently as Executive Vice President and President of its Restorative Therapies Group, and was a member of Medtronic’s Executive Committee for nine years.  He started his career at Chemical Banking Corporation in New York.  O’Connell earned a Bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University in 1989 and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Harvard University in 1994.

Michael O’Shea, Founder, The O’Shea Firm

Before starting The O’Shea Firm in Washington D.C., Michael O’Shea worked for three major law firms: Clifford Chance, Akin Gump and Hunton & Williams. The O’Shea Firm specializes in patent monetization and patent litigation at the intersection of business and technology. O’Shea has litigated numerous patent cases in virtually every technology, from semiconductors to pharmaceuticals, automobiles to medical instrumentation, and software to specialty chemicals. He has also litigated in jurisdictions nationwide, including numerous district courts, the International Trade Commission, the Federal Circuit and the United States Supreme Court.

O’Shea earned his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University, and his JD from Fordham University School of Law. He is a member of the American Bar Association; the Federal Circuit Bar Association; and the Intellectual Property Owners.

About the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute

Chemistry of Life Processes Institute is where new cures and biomedical discoveries begin at Northwestern. Drawn by the lnstitute’s extraordinary expertise and facilities for innovation and translation, investigators from across the University converge at the Institute to apply path-breaking science and transdisciplinary approaches that define new fields and open up promising areas of inquiry.  CLP lowers the barriers to success and hastens the development and delivery of new diagnostic tools and therapeutics to millions of people around the world living with cancer, neurological diseases, heart disease and other disorders.

CLP drives innovation and translation at Northwestern and transforms science and lives. Since its founding, the Institute has advanced 75 new drug candidates, medical devices and diagnostic tools towards clinical trials.  CLP investigators have spun out 26 new companies that have attracted $1.5 billion in investment.

by Lisa La Vallee