To better your understanding of non-clinical career options and/or facilitate your physician career change, today we introduce you to August M. Watanabe, MD. Dr. Watanabe joined Frazier Healthcare Ventures in 2005 as Senior Advisor to the Biopharma team.
Previously, Dr. Watanabe was a director and executive officer of Eli Lilly and Company including Executive Vice President, Science and Technology, President of Lilly Research Laboratories. He officially retired from Eli Lilly in 2003 having been with the company since 1990. During his tenure at Lilly, the company became recognized as having the strongest pipeline of potential new drug products in the pharmaceutical industry. While with Lilly, he served for six years as chairman of the Science and Technology Section of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association of America (PhRMA).
Prior to joining Lilly, Dr. Watanabe had been a full-time faculty member of the Department of Medicine of Indiana University School of Medicine and was chairman of the department of internal medicine and director of the Regenstrief Institute at Indiana University School of Medicine. During his academic career at Indiana University, he served as a member of the board of trustees of the American College of Cardiology and as a member of the board of directors of the American Heart Association. He also served as a permanent member of the FDA’s Cardio-Renal Advisory Committee and National Institutes of Health study sections, and on the editorial boards of multiple scientific journals in the fields of pharmacology, biochemistry and cardiology. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 peer reviewed publications and medical book chapters.
Dr. Watanabe earned a bachelor of science degree in zoology from Wheaton College in 1963. He received his doctor of medicine degree in 1967 from the Indiana University School of Medicine, where he then served his residency in internal medicine. He did additional postgraduate work in pharmacology at the Laboratory of Clinical Science of the National Institute of Mental Health and a fellowship in cardiology at Indiana University Medical Center.
Dr Watanabe is a volunteer chairman of the board of BioCrossroads, chairman of Kalysys, and a director of Guidant Corporation, Ambrx, Endocyte, Reliant, QuatRx, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the Indiana University Foundation, the Regenstrief Foundation, the Indiana State Symphony Society and Christel House International.
For more information about Dr. Watanabe and Frazier Healthcare Ventures, please visit the company website.
