Andrew X. Chen, PhD, RPh, President. Dr. Chen founded Latitude Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in 2003 to address the difficult formulation challenges facing biotech and pharmaceutical companies. Andrew has over 20 years of formulation experience covering small molecule, peptide, protein, nucleic acid, and virus-based pharmaceuticals. Andrew’s deep experience enables Latitude to rapidly pinpoint key issues with difficult compounds, enabling the rapid development of toxicology and commercial formulations. His formulations are behind one approved drug, two NDA-stage drugs, and numerous clinical and preclinical stage projects. Andrew’s creative and inventive approach has led to over 25 issued and pending formulation patents, many of which list him as the sole inventor. Before founding Latitude, Andrew held positions of increasing responsibility at Bristol Myers Squibb Co., Immulogic, Inc., Selective Genetics, Inc., and IriSys, Inc. Andrew obtained his BS degree in pharmacy from Zhejiang University and his MS in PhD degrees in Pharmaceutical Sciences from St. John’s University in New York. Andrew is a registered pharmacist.

Norman K. Orida, PhD, MBA, Vice President of Business Development. Norman has over 20 years of experience as a researcher and business development executive in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Prior to joining Latitude in 2007, he held positions of increasing responsibility at Tanabe Seiyaku Co., Ltd., Medinox, Inc., Optimer Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Curexo, Inc. In all the positions, he played key roles in the companies’ business development, licensing, and M&A activities. Norman received his A.B. degree in zoology from the University of California, Berkeley and his Ph.D. in developmental biology from the University of California, Irvine. He also received his MBA degree from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Yali Tsai, PhD, RPh, Vice President of Project Development. Yali is a seasoned drug formulator who started her industrial career immediately after receiving her PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the University of Southern California. Before joining Latitude in 2006, she has held positions of increasing rank and responsibility over the past 16 years at Vical, Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Inc., ISIS Pharmacueticals, Inc., and Pfizer, Inc. In these positions, she was actively involved in numerous formulation development projects related to oncology, virology, ophthalmology, and hospital products. At Latitude, her responsibility areas cover parenteral and ophthalmic formulation projects. Yali received her BS in Pharmacy from National Taiwan University and is also a registered pharmacist.

John Fan, PhD, Director of Formulation. John’s career has focused on drug formulation and manufacturing first as a postdoc at the University of Kentucky, then in industrial positions of increasing responsibility at IriSys, Inc., Paddock Laboratories, Inc., and Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. John has over 10 years of hands-on formulation experience from numerous preformulation, deformulation, formulation development and transfer, and process scale up projects. In addition, John’s experience in cGMP manufacturing includes batch record preparation and review, QA/QC responsibilities, and stability testing. John received his PhD degree at the University of Utah and postdoctoral training at the University of Kentucky.

Hailiang Chen, PhD, Senior Scientist. Hailiang’s brings to Latitude his extensive expertise in achieving controlled and sustained release delivery profiles from novel delivery systems such as liposomes, microspheres, nanoparticles, nanoemulsions, and other dosage forms. Since arriving at Latitude in 2007, Hailiang has been a major contributor to the company’s preformulation, formulation development, process selection and scale-up functions. Hailiang received both his BS in Pharmacy and PhD in Pharmaceutics from Zhejiang University in China.

Stephen Wu, General Manager. Stephen has broad industry experience from accounting and management positions at financial institutions, large manufacturing companies, and R&D companies. Since joining Latitude in 2003, he has since served as the company’s General Manager, having responsibility for all aspects of Latitude’s accounting and administrative functions as well as the buildout of the company’s facilities and infrastructure.