About Pharma Launcher

Katya Tsaioun, Ph.D.
Biographical Sketch

Dr. Tsaioun is a widely recognized expert in preclinical drug-discovery research. Her book, ADMET for Medicinal Chemists, was published in 2011 by Wiley & Sons. Dr. Tsaioun serves on the scientific review boards of the National Institute of Aging, the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation, and the International Rett Syndrome Foundation. Dr. Tsaioun is regularly interviewed by trade publications such as Genetic Engineering News and Drug Discovery News, and is invited to speak at conferences on the topics of early toxicity assessment, building productive R&D teams, and entrepreneurship.

Before founding Pharma Launcher, Dr. Tsaioun was Chief Scientific Officer at Cyprotex, the world's largest contract research organization specializing in ADME Tox. Cyprotex is a publicly traded, UK-based company with laboratories in the US and UK.. Dr. Tsaioun joined Cyprotex subsequent to Cyprotex's 2010 acquisition of Apredica, where she was a co-founder and President. At Cyprotex, Dr. Tsaioun managed scientific strategy and strategic alliances, particularly focusing on the ADME Tox technologies developed at Apredica, and those which Apredica acquired from Cellumen. Apredica opened for business in 2006. In four years Dr. Tsaioun grew Apredica from 1.5 to 12 FTEs. Apredica initially focused on preclinical ADME contract research, then expanded to become an early leader in the in vitro toxicology market.

Prior to founding Apredica, Dr. Tsaioun managed the ADME programs for NitroMed, and before that, Surface Logix.

Dr. Tsaioun earned her B.S./M.S. degree in solid-state chemistry from the Leningrad Institute of Technology, and her Ph.D. from Tufts University. Her Ph.D. thesis on effects of signal transduction and apoptosis factors in the rat brain was done under direction of Drs. James Sadowski and James Joseph in the Neuroscience Laboratory. She completed her academic training in the Neurochemistry Department at the Harvard University Primate Center, working on in vivo and in vitro drug-dependence models with cannabinoid receptor and dopamine transporter systems.