FERNANDINA BEACH, FL – The advisory board at medication safety organization GalenusRx welcomes another industry leader: Dr. Lawrence J. Lesko, Clinical Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida College of Pharmacy and an accomplished drug development and regulatory consultant to the pharmaceutical industry.
Prior to joining the UF faculty in 2011, Dr. Lesko spent nearly two decades in the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, serving as Director of the Office of Clinical Pharmacology. He chaired the Clinical Pharmacology Coordinating Subcommittee of the FDA’s Medical Policy Coordinating Committee, launched the FDA’s Voluntary Genomics Data Submission Program and Mechanistic Drug Safety Program, and established regulatory programs in pharmacometrics, mechanistic QSP models of adverse drug events, and pharmacogenomics.
Dr. Lesko’s many awards include the Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award and Gary Neil Prize for Innovation in Drug Development, both from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (ASCPT), and the ASCPT & FDA William B. Abrams Award. He also earned the International Society of Pharmacometrics Leadership Award.
“Dr. Lesko is admired worldwide for his scope of knowledge and for decades of dedication to making medications safer and more effective,” said Calvin H. Knowlton, PhD, Co-CEO and Executive Chairman, GalenusRx. “He’s devoted his career to pursuing the very mission GalenusRx was built upon. To say that we’re honored to have his influence and input would be a profound understatement.”
Academics and researchers around the world seek out Dr. Lesko’s guidance on clinical pharmacology, personalized medicine, pharmacometrics, and systems pharmacology. His 200-plus peer-reviewed publications have been cited more than 16,000 times, and global organizations—from the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics to the International Conference on Pharmacogenomics—routinely invite him to speak.
“We share important, challenging and achievable goals in enhancing drug safety monitoring using advanced analytics. Pharmaceutical treatments can and should continue to be made safer by identifying potential or actual adverse events in vulnerable patients. Precision is key to modern pharmacovigilance. Integrating precision with classical safety surveillance methods is the foundation of GalenusRx. I look forward with enthusiasm to the progress that we will make working together to help ensure that all patient treatments are as safe, and effective, as possible.”
