Neela Patel

Neela Patel is a Director of Licensing-Scientific Assessment at AbbVie (formerly Abbott Laboratories) with responsibility for identification and evaluation of discovery and early clinical stage collaboration and licensing opportunities worldwide for oncology. In addition, Dr. Patel serves as the therapy area liaison for oncology discovery, partnering with senior management to create the overall strategy for the pipeline, and assessing all incoming opportunities for technical robustness and strategic fit. Prior to her role in Business Development, she served as Director of Global External Research, with a focus on building the early stage discovery pipeline through collaborations. Dr. Patel has over twenty years pharma/biotech industry experience with small molecules and biologics from early stage discovery through IND filing, with a focus on oncology and ophthalmology. Most recently, she led Preclinical and Translational Medicine at Poniard Pharmaceuticals where she established the biology department and jointly created a preclinical product pipeline with the head of chemistry, including FAK inhibitors which were licensed to Verastem in 2011. Prior to Poniard, Dr. Patel served in drug discovery management positions of increasing responsibility at Genentech, SUGEN/Pharmacia, and Roche Bioscience. Dr. Patel was also a key member of several start-up company teams to establish the overall business and scientific strategies and to seek and secure funding.