Neil Weir, senior vice president of discovery at UCB, has become chairman of the ABPI Innovation Board following the retirement of John Stageman earlier this year.
The ABPI Innovation Board was set up to develop a long term vision for pharmaceutical innovation in the UK and to boost the organisation’s international competitive position.
Weir leads discovery at UCB where he oversees an integrated portfolio of small molecule and antibody therapeutic projects in the areas of immunology and neurology. He was one of the inventors of Cimzia, a novel pegylated anti-TNF, and the discovery team he is responsible for has taken 20 novel molecules (comprising small molecules and antibodies) from discovery into development.
Prior to his role at UCB, Weir was head of discovery at Celltech R&D in the UK, where he was involved in the discovery and development of antibody and antibody fragment-based drugs.
