DMPK Management Team
Senior Director and Head of Preclinical DMPK
Helen Shen joined QPS in 2002 as Director of Discovery and Preclinical Development and was promoted to Senior Director of Discovery and Preclinical Development in 2005. Before joining QPS, she held the position of Principal Research Scientist at DuPont Pharmaceuticals, where her focus was in cancer and anti-inflammatory therapeutic areas that brought a number of compounds from early discovery into the clinical stage. Since the mid 1990s, she has focused mostly on CNS drugs, where she led a number of ADME teams for ERC, IND and NDA filings. Shen received her Ph.D. in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of California at San Francisco and her post-doctoral training in pharmaceutics from the University of Washington.
Director of Autoradiography
Prior to joining QPS, Eric Solon served as a Senior Research Scientist and DMPK representative of the anti-viral project team at DuPont Pharmaceuticals. At DuPont, he coordinated preclinical ADME activities for ERC and IND filings, and implemented both macro- and micro-autoradiography techniques to support drug discovery and development. Before joining DuPont, he held various scientific posts in toxicology/pathology and DMPK at Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals, Novartis and Schering-Plough Research Institute. Solon received his Ph.D. in molecular biology/pathology from Rutgers University. He is currently the President Ex-Officio and a course instructor for the Society for Whole-Body Autoradiography, an ad hoc consultant for AAALAC International and is an internationally recognized expert in the field.
Director of Discovery and Preclinical Development
Bruce Aungst joined QPS in 2004 and has been Director of Discovery and Preclinical Development since 2006. In previous positions at DuPont Pharmaceuticals and Bristol Myers Squibb, Aungst represented biopharmaceutics on various drug discovery project teams. His work has led to the characterization of oral bioavailability properties, using both in vitro and in vivo models, and the identification and discovery of formulations for improving oral absorption. His experience also includes evaluation of alternative routes of administration (e.g. transdermal and transmucosal), prodrugs and drug transporters. Aungst earned his Ph.D. in pharmaceutics from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1981.
Associate Director of Biotransformation
Ronghua Wang received his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Rhode Island in 1992 and served as a Research Assistant Professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to joining QPS, he was a Senior Scientist at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for both drug discovery and development projects. During Wang’s tenure at Vertex, he was a team leader for the non-clinical development of Telaprevir, a drug for the treatment of hepatitis C, and was involved with the IND filing for this drug. He also has extensive experience in structure elucidation of metabolites of drugs and drug candidates.
Senior Group Leader, Autoradiography
Alfred Lordi began his career in the pharmaceutical industry in 1989, and prior to joining QPS, he served in the Toxicology and DMPK departments of Bio-Dynamics, Exxon Biomedical and Schering-Plough Research Institute, where he coordinated DMPK study activities in whole-body autoradioluminography (WBA), microautoradiography, tissue distribution, and human radio-excretion studies. Lordi received his B.S. in animal science from
Manager of Animal Resources
Brad Willis received his D.V.M. from
Leader & Head of Discovery and Non-GLP Bioanalytical
Consulting Director
Check Quon has more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining QPS in 2004, he was Executive Director of DMPK at DuPont Pharmaceuticals Co., where he was responsible for the preclinical/clinical DMPK of all new chemical entities. Quon and his team successfully filed and gained approval of eight NDAs and one MAA, submitted over 50 INDs and 15 CTXs and supported the nomination of more than 100 drug candidates. He has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, more than 80 abstracts and three book chapters in the areas of preclinical/clinical DMPK, toxicokinetics and clinical pharmacology. Quon received his Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of California at Los Angeles. He did his post-doctoral training in oncology at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin and received his M.B.A. from the University of Delaware.
