YOLANDA SANCHEZ

Advisor, Clinical Translation

Yolanda Sanchez PhD has 25+ years of combined academic and industry experience in translational research and drug discovery.  During her 14 years at GSK, she held positions of increasing responsibility in early drug discovery, becoming Vice-President and Discovery Performance Unit head (Respiratory Therapy Area). Yolanda’s expertise spans target and pathway identification and validation, lead optimization, candidate selection, translational studies, biomarkers and early clinical studies. As DPU head, she was responsible for a portfolio of novel mechanisms to address disease progression in chronic respiratory diseases, including COPD. Under her leadership, the DPU progressed several innovative mechanisms represented by great quality small molecules to Phase I and Experimental Medicine clinical studies in COPD. For the last two and a half years, Yolanda has worked as an independent scientific consultant with over 10 biotech companies in various therapy areas (respiratory, renal and skin diseases) and modalities (gene therapy, microbiome, small molecule programs). Yolanda combines a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in the biotech space with her extensive scientific and executive experience in big pharma.

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Yolanda is assisting RAGE with the planning and implementation of pre-clinical and translational strategies to support the progression of drug discovery programs to the clinic.