George W. Holland, PhD

George W. Holland has extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry working for both major and emerging pharmaceutical organizations.  His experience includes the areas of synthetic organic chemistry, drug discovery (design, optimization, candidate selection), patent application, process chemistry, cGMP process validation and manufacturing, and CMC regulatory submissions (foreign and domestic).  He has also served as an expert witness in litigation matters related to the above areas of expertise.

Previously, George was Vice President of Chemical Sciences at Encysive Pharmaceuticals, Houston, Texas.  At Encysive, he led the team of chemists in the generation of proprietary drug candidates for the discovery programs.  This highly successful effort produced a number of small molecule drug candidates which were advanced through GLP and GMP manufacturing, stability testing, formulation development, and into clinical evaluation.  One drug, Thelin, has gained approval in the EU, Canada and Australia, and approval is pending in the US.  Three other small molecule drugs are currently under clinical evaluation.

Prior to Encysive, George was for 26 years with Hoffmann-LaRoche (Nutley) where he started his career as a research chemist and subsequently progressed to various senior therapeutic area management positions.  While at Roche, his research efforts resulted in the discovery of 4 small molecule compounds which were advanced into clinical development.

George obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the Pennsylvania State University, a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Iowa State University, and conducted postdoctoral research with Nobel Laureate H.C. Brown at Purdue University.  He currently has 36 scientific publications and holds 50 patents.

At a personal level, George is a volunteer for the Houston Livestock and Rodeo, an organization that raises more than 8 million dollars annually to provide full scholarships to disadvantaged youth of Texas.  In addition, he supports various other charitable organizations through his participation in cycling and running events.