Victor Diaz joined the Almac Group in October 2016 as Head of Physical Sciences, Almac Sciences. One year on it is clear his appointment has impacted the direction of Almac.
His first year with Almac strengthened the organisation’s growth with both internal and external clients, resulting in a substantial contribution to the performance of Almac Sciences in FY17.
The team also raised awareness of the role Almac plays in the development of new drugs, with talks at CPhI US / InformEx in May, the fifty seventh Land O’Lakes Pharmaceutical Analysis Conference in July and the Industrial Crystallisation (ISIC) in September.
Finally, Diaz issued a white paper spotlighting problems frequently encountered in method transfers for pharmaceutical analyses, leading to publication in the October.
“I am delighted to work with such great people, where everyone is eager to grow as a team and improve the services we currently provide to our global clients. The Physical Sciences team has been granted seven internal Excellence awards in 2017, which shows the level of dedication and commitment of every individual on the team focused on our clients’ success, which is also the success of Almac.”
After completing his PhD, Victor joined High Force Research, providing customer synthesis for the pharmaceutical and fine chemicals industries.
Two years later, he joined Medivir, where he worked as part of the lead identification and lead optimisation teams in the development of small molecule pharmaceuticals in the area of protease and polymerase inhibition.
During this time, he participated in the selection of two candidate drugs. After seven years working in drug discovery, Victor joined Pharmorphix (Sigma-Aldrich) in 2007, working on preclinical solid state drug development.
Victor was involved in around 180 projects before becoming Projects Director in 2011.
Victor became Site Director in 2014 and played an important part in the acquisition of the company by Johnson Matthey in 2015.
Victor completed his doctoral thesis in 1998 at the University of Seville on the synthesis of aza-sugars related to naturally occurring polyhydroxyindolizidines.
He also conducted studies on enzymatic inhibition as part of his doctorate, in what was his first experience in pharmaceutical research.