Rockstar Breakfast and Networking
#WESTorg

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Are you looking for an opportunity to network with senior women leaders? If so, this is THE event for you. Enjoy a light breakfast accompanied by lots of conversation with Charlotte Allerton, Senior Vice President and Head of Medicine Design at Pfizer and Joanne Kotz, Cofounder, President and CEO of Jnana Therapeutics. Registration is for WEST MEMBERS ONLY and will be limited to a maximum of 20 participants to ensure an intimate experience. 

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Charlotte Allerton, Senior Vice President, Head of Medicine Design, Pfizer

Charlotte Allerton is Senior Vice President and Head of Medicine Design in Pfizer. Medicine Design includes the scientific disciplines of Medicinal Chemistry, Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics and Metabolism (PDM), and Hit Discovery and Lead Optimization capabilities, enabling a deep focus on the design and delivery of small molecule medicines across Pfizer’s core disease areas. Charlotte joined Medicinal Chemistry in Pfizer, Sandwich in 1993, and spent 14 years working across a range of therapeutic areas, including a secondment to Japan to partner on pain research. In 2007, Charlotte joined PDM as the Genitourinary Therapeutic Area Lead, progressing to take the role of Sandwich PDM site lead in 2009. She moved to Cambridge UK in 2011 to lead Pre-Clinical Sciences for the Neusentis Pain Research Unit, overseeing DMPK, drug safety and pharmaceutical sciences capabilities. In 2012, Charlotte took on leadership of the small molecule PDM line and re-located with her family to the U.S.A.. In 2016 she took on leadership of Medicine Design. Charlotte obtained her BSc from the University of Nottingham in 1993 and MPhil in organic chemistry from the University of Cambridge in 1997.

Joanne Kotz, Ph.D., Cofounder, President and CEO, Jnana Therapeutics

Joanne has broad life sciences experience in research, business and operations. She helped formulate the initial scientific strategy for Jnana and has led the business and operations of the company since its launch. Prior to Jnana, she was assistant director of the F-Prime Biomedical Research Initiative, whose mission is to advance the discovery of novel therapeutic agents for the treatment of neurodegenerative disease by funding early-stage research in academia and biotech companies. Before F-Prime, Joanne was a director at the Broad Institute, where she held a leadership role in creating and guiding partnerships to advance drug discovery efforts, including the Broad-Bayer collaboration in oncology that resulted in the identification of multiple drug candidates. At Broad, Joanne also developed a model for rare disease research that directly involved patients in the research team. Joanne received her doctorate in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and bachelor’s in chemistry from the University of Florida. She conducted her postdoctoral research at the Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris and Genentech. Following Genentech, she was at Nature Publishing Group, including as founding editor of the journal Nature Chemical Biology.