Pramthesh Patel, Ph.D

Pramthesh (Prem) Patel has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry spanning Drug Discovery and Drug Development. He started his career in the drug discovery division of Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) where he worked on several discovery programs spanning many different therapeutic areas. He rose through the ranks to a position of group leader and played a key role in the implementation of High Throughput Screening and Ultra High Throughput Screening (UHTS) technologies. In 1999, he joined Smith Kline Beecham’s (later GSK) CMC division for biologics. Over the past several years Prem has served as the Senior Director of upstream process development activities for the entire biopharmaceutical portfolio at GSK. During his tenure at GSK he led the development of the company’s proprietary mammalian cell line expression system; the development of chemically defined proprietary cell culture media & feeds and the implementation of intensified fed-batch processes. He also co-chaired the Platform and Technology Review Council which serves as the governing body coordinating and setting the strategic direction for platform evolution and technology innovation in the biologics arena at GSK. Prem has authored and reviewed six marketing applications which have been approved for commercialization in all the major markets in the world.

Prem obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology & Chemistry from the University of Bombay, India, his Master of Science degree in microbial physiology from Southern Illinois University and his Ph. D. from the University of Florida in cellular physiology and molecular biology. He completed his Postdoctoral training at Virginia Tech.