A seminar and q+a session for young investigators looking to learn about career paths beyond academia.

C. Alex Goddard
Director, Academic Innovation
Takeda Pharmaceuticals

Alex is Director of Academic Innovation within the Center for External Innovation at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Takeda is a global pharmaceuticals company developing treatments for patients across oncology, neuroscience, gastroenterology, and rare diseases. Dr. Goddard works with the Rare Diseases Drug Discovery team to identify and develop collaborations between Takeda scientists and academic investigators, participating in sourcing, proposal crafting, and contracting.

Alex received his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Harvard (DMS) and did a postdoc at Stanford. He started his industry career at Novartis in Neuroscience drug discovery. He then was head of research at Tal Medical, a small company developing a medical device for the treatment of depression. Following the closure of Tal, he was head of research for AOBiome, a microbiological therapeutics company focused on treatments for dermatologic disease. He joined Takeda in late 2019.

During this presentation, he will describe his transition to industry, pharma vs start-up differences, and speak to a few lessons learned about life in and the transition to industry.

A lunch will follow the talk at 1:00pm.