Management in SynChem

A staff of accomplished synthetic organic and medicinal chemists carries out the research and development at SynChem, Inc.  In addition, Dr. Jan Wasley, former Vice President of Neurogen Corporation, and Professor R. Silverman of Northwestern University, Prof. Frank McDonnell of Emory University, are members of the Scientific Advisory Board.

Scientific Advisory Board

Jan W.F. Wasley, Ph.D., is the Chairman of SynChem’s Scientific Advisory Board. He is the President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Institutes of Pharmaceutical Discovery in Branford Connecticut and the former Vice President of Business Development and Director of Chemistry at Neurogen. He became involved in the development of Neurogen's Accelerated Intelligent Drug Design (AIDD) technologies. AIDD integrates Neurogen's successful combinatorial chemistry program with high-throughput screening capabilities, complementary both with state-of-the-art robotics and proprietary interactive data system. Dr. Wasley's scientific background lies in organic and medicinal chemistry. He received his B.Sc. degree in chemistry in 1959 and his Ph.D. in 1962 from Prof. A.W. Johnson at the University of Nottingham, England for his work in the synthesis of pyrroles, porphyrins and related macrocycles. Following a Postdoctoral Fellowship (1962-1964) at the National Research Council of Canada, where he worked on the elucidation of chlorobium chlorophylls with Dr. A.S. Holt, Dr. Wasley joined the Research Division of Geigy Pharmaceuticals in 1965 as a Senior Chemist. Dr.Wasley held positions of increasing responsibility within the Research Department of Ciba-Geigy in drug discovery and drug development activities and most recently was responsible for identifying and implementing new technologies and managing external collaborations. He has over 39 years of experience in the design, discovery, and development of novel drugs for a wide variety of diseases, and has over 90 publications and patents in the area of medicinal chemistry.

 

Richard B. Silverman, Ph.D., is a Charles Deering McCormick Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University. Professor Silverman is a leader of organic and medicinal research in Chemistry, particularly in the field of molecular mechanisms of action, rational design, and syntheses of potential medicinal agents that act as specific enzyme inhibitors. Throughout his tenure at Northwestern University, he was awarded numerous awards, the most recent being an ACS Arthur C. Cope Senior Scholar Award. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry, Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters, Letters of Drug Design & Discovery, and a former member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. He also is the author of “The Organic Chemistry of Drug Design and Drug Action”, “Mechanism-Based Enzyme Inactivation: Chemistry and Enzymology”.

Prof. Silverman received his B.Sc. degree in chemistry in 1968 at Pennsylvania State University and his Ph.D. in 1969 at Harvard University, a Postdoctoral Fellowship (1974-1976) at Brandeis University. He has more than 200 publications and 34 patents and 4 books in his research.

 

Management Team

W. Paul Mar, CEO

Wuping Ma is the current Chairman and CEO of Synchem Inc, and the former President and CEO from 1997 to 2003. Under his supervision, Synchem has expanded operations to both Chicago (USA) and Shanghai (China).

Dr. Mar has been recognized as a three-time recipient of the Small Business Innovation Research Award from the National Institute of Health; two from the NIGMS and one being a joint project between the NIACD and NCI. In addition, he has been a guest speaker to many conferences regarding chemical outsourcing, such as the 2010 American-Chinese Pharma-Biotech Symposium, 8th Annual Outsourcing Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Preclinical Development & Contract Manufacturing, 2005 Tri-State CACS Conference, SAPA 13th Annual Conference 2005, 2004 Beijing Pharmaceutical R&D International Forum, San Diego Bio-Pharma Conference, and the 9th Annual Pharmaceutical Outsourcing of Discovery Chemistry.

Dr. Mar holds a B.S. and M.S. degree in Chemistry from Zhongshan University and a Ph.D. from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry. He was a Post-Doctoral Fellow and Research Associate at the Northwestern University Materials Research Center in the synthesis of capped porphyrin and work in organic LED research. His current focus is on the long-term development and business plans of Synchem while continuing research in organic chemical research.

Daniel Fang, President

Daniel Fang is the President, Chief Operating Officer, and Co-founder of Synchem Inc. He developed and oversaw services for SynChem fulfilling thousands of projects including custom orders, process development, catalog products, bioactive molecules, and products for medicinal and analytical chemistry. Under his supervision, SynChem’s wide variety of customers ranging from multi-national pharmaceutical, biotech, drug discovery, chemical, and agrochemical companies have been able to generate over 15 scientific publications, 4 US Patents. Currently, three projects originating from Synchem have reached the market thanks to the continued effort and ingenuity of our customers. Mr. Fang is an outsourcing pioneer in the field of chemistry credited for the expansion of SynChem in China and the Research and Development of the company’s current 3,000 catalog products.

Mr. Fang holds a B.S. and M.S. from the Chengdu Institute of Organic Chemistry and Zhejiang Normal University and continued research at the University of Indiana regarding asymmetric synthesis. He’s currently involved with the daily operations and planning at SynChem.

 

Ze-Qi Xu, CSO

is the Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder of Synchem GMP. Prior to his involvement at SynChem, Dr. Xu was the CSO and Executive Vice President of Advanced Life Sciences, and the former Vice President of Strategic Drug Development at MediChem Life Sciences before then. He brings with him over 25 years of experience in responsible research, development, and operations from medicinal chemistry (lead identification/optimization, parallel/combinatorial synthesis, SAR) to preclinical research (ADME, pharmacology and toxicology) to clinical development (Phase I, II and III) and specializes in FDA/ICH guidelines and regulations pertinent to drug development such as GLP, GMP, and GCP.

Dr. Xu’s strong background strategic regulatory planning and intellectual property protection offers SynChem stellar experience in the preparation of IND and NDA submissions including CMC and API documentation ensuring the company stays in compliance with current quality and regulatory standards with both our vendors, customers, and current Industry regulations.

Dr. Xu has been awarded more than $5 million in research grants from various state and federal government agencies including State of Illinois, National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense. He has been instrumental in two successful NASDAQ IPOs, raising over $230 million in private and public funding. Dr. Xu has co-authored 60 peer-reviewed scientific papers, 21 U.S. patents, and 60 presentations for various national and international conferences and symposiums.

Dr. Xu received B.S. in Chemistry in Jiangxi Normal University, M.S. in Shanghai Medical University, and Ph.D. at the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry. He conducted his postdoctoral research, respectively, at Clemson University and Michigan Cancer Foundation. He conducted his postdoctoral research, respectively, at Clemson University and Michigan Cancer Foundation.