PDA West Coast Chapter (PDA WCC)

📣 Flash Sale Alert! Get 25% off tickets for our upcoming AI in Biopharmaceutical Development & Manufacturing Conference from March 20-21—don’t miss your chance to save big! 🎟️ This is a content-rich program offering a variety of industry expert presentations, interactive roundtables, and engaging panel discussions on artificial intelligence in: Manufacturing, upstream processes in Process Development, and downstream testing from a Quality view. 🔗 Click the link below to register now! Discounted tickets are available until 11MAR25. https://lnkd.in/gjQR6ua3

🌟 Meet Josh Kim, one of our panelists for our upcoming AI in Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing Conference hosted at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV! Josh is the CEO and co-founder of Artos, a Y Combinator-backed company providing the most scalable AI platform for document creation and management in the life sciences. Josh’s journey began in regulatory, clinical, and commercial strategy roles at leading precision oncology companies, including Ignyta (acquired by Roche in 2017) and Erasca (backed by a16z and ARCH Ventures). At Ignyta, he focused on executing late-stage trials and securing marketing approvals while at Erasca, he worked on early-stage IND strategy and trial design. Inspired by his experiences in biotech and personal interactions with healthcare systems, Josh transitioned to academic research at the University of Chicago where his work centered on developing AI for clinical workflows and drug development, including time-series machine learning techniques to monitor neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s. His work earned him recognition as the youngest NIH-funded Principal Investigator at the National Institute on Aging, leading collaborations to deploy AI in clinical trials and improve trial site selection and patient recruitment through NLP techniques. Josh graduated summa cum laude from the University of Chicago. Tickets are ON SALE NOW! Click the link below to purchase your ticket now before the price increases! ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gjQR6ua3 #pdawcc #ai #biopharma #development #manufacturing

🌟 Meet Rita Algorri, one of our panelists for our upcoming AI in Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing Conference hosted at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV! Rita Algorri, PhD is a Senior Manager, Regulatory Affairs CMC at Amgen Inc. in Thousand Oaks, CA. In this role, her responsibilities include leading and orchestrating internal and external engagement activities relating to regulatory modernization, digitization, automation, and emerging technologies. She also serves within Amgen’s Advocacy and External Engagement function which fosters collaboration with multiple internal and external cross-functional teams to coordinate and progress company and industry initiatives. Rita is a microbiologist by training and holds a PhD in Clinical and Experimental Therapeutics and M.S. in Regulatory Science from the University of Southern California. Tickets are ON SALE NOW! Click the link below to purchase your ticket now before the price increases! ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gjQR6ua3 #pdawcc #ai #biopharma #development #manufacturing

🌟 Meet Rashed Harun, one of our panelists for our upcoming AI in Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing Conference hosted at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV! Rashed has been a data scientist in Genentech for 5 years and is currently supporting allogeneic CAR-T therapy development. He has a strong expertise in applying explainable machine learning methods across various functions throughout the company, and in particular, clinical pharmacology. He received his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the University of Pittsburgh, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in Computational Neuroscience from UC Davis and an Insight Data Science fellowship in San Francisco. Tickets are ON SALE NOW! Click the link below to purchase your ticket now before the price increases! ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gjQR6ua3 #pdawcc #ai #biopharma #development #manufacturing

🌟 Meet Don Low, one of our panelists for our upcoming AI in Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing Conference hosted at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV! Don Low, PhD, is a Senior Director in the Cell and Gene Therapy group at Genentech, based in South San Francisco, California. With over 14 years of experience at Genentech, Don leads a team specializing in bioinformatics, data, and analytics to support process development and manufacturing for cell and gene therapies. He plays a key role in advancing individualized mRNA,T-cell, and regenerative medicine collaborations through the integration of computational methods into drug development. Don's expertise spans small molecule, peptide, and biologics programs. His early career included an NIH postdoctoral fellowship and a successful role as Principal Investigator for an NIST Advanced Technology Program, where he managed interdisciplinary teams and fostered international collaborations. Don holds a PhD in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. A native Californian, Don is an avid cyclist and loves cooking food with his family. Tickets are ON SALE NOW! Click the link below to purchase your ticket now before the price increases! ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gjQR6ua3 #pdawcc #ai #biopharma #development #manufacturing

🌟 Meet Remus Osan, one of our panelists for our upcoming AI in Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing Conference hosted at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV! Remus Osan is the Director of Data Science at Gilead, specializing in Computer Vision solutions for pharma manufacturing. His work focuses on the characterization of particles, 3D structures for long-acting injectables and tablets, and additional computational modeling. In this role, his graduate training in Physics from University of Pittsburgh and his faculty experience in Math&Stats from Georgia State University comes in handy sometimes to fend off GenAI hallucinations (or is part of the process without knowing it). Tickets are ON SALE NOW! Click the link below to purchase your ticket now before the price increases! ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gjQR6ua3 #pdawcc #ai #biopharma #development #manufacturing

🌟 The PDA West Coast Chapter (PDA WCC) and Ohlone College hosted the Biotechnology Roundtable Student Mixer at Ohlone College's Newark Campus on February 22, 2025, bringing together 129 attendees, including students, alumni, faculty, and PDA WCC volunteers! The mixer began with snacks and biotech trivia, testing students’ knowledge of industry history and innovations before diving into roundtable discussions facilitated by industry professionals. Attendees explored career pathways in biotech and clinical research, gained insights into quality systems, project management, regulatory expectations, personal branding, and communication, and received resume reviews, networking strategies, job search guidance, LinkedIn optimization, and mock interviews to support their career development. Attendees also received free professional headshots! The PDA WCC Student ECP initiatives continue to grow, providing invaluable networking opportunities, career insights, and industry connections. Attendee feedback showed the event’s strong impact, with nearly all participants rating the discussions as highly effective and 100% expressing overall satisfaction! 💯 A huge thank you to our industry hosts for sharing their expertise: Nafiseh B., Shuhui Chen, Ph.D., Priyanka Dhar, Thea Ednave, Sheena Lalaine Fangonilo, Negar Harati, Ellen Huynh, Laurie Issel-Tarver, Ana Kemp, Autumn Lee, Stephanie Lee, Zachary Maher, Leila Ng, Alejandro Olvera, Derek Perceval, Nita Sharma, Namrata Sher, Esha Tambe, and Bob To. Special thank you to our dedicated event organizers: Shuhui Chen, Ph.D., Bob To, Stephanie Lee, Laurie Issel-Tarver, Lori Silverman, and Nita Sharma! Join us for our upcoming 1.5 day special event in Las Vegas at Caesars Palace: AI in Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing on March 20-21! Register at the link below ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gYfbJCGV #pdawcc #studentengagement #communitybuilding

🌟 Meet Ramon Mendoza, one of our panelists for our upcoming AI in Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing Conference hosted at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV! Ramon is the Scientific Director within the Cell and Gene Therapy Analytical Development group at Johnson and Johnson Innovative Medicine where he supporting the cell & gene therapy portfolio, leveraging his ATMP expertise. Prior to joining Janssen, Ramon worked for Bristol Myers Squibb (Celgene), Orchard Therapeutics, Rocket Pharma, Bayer Pharma and Analytical Lab Group now part of Element Materials Technology. During this time, Ramon had the responsibilities of leading analytical and commercial GMP quality teams, developing process and analytical control strategies for AAV, LV, RNP’s and CAR-T drug products. He has experience supporting Cell & Gene Therapy programs from early /late-stage development, well into the commercial lifecycle. He has authored many submissions and participated in agency inspection and meetings, leading to successful commercial approvals of new CAR-T drug products. Ramon has a PhD in Cell & Molecular Biology from the University of Washington, MS and BS in Biochemistry from San Francisco State University. He also held postdoctoral positions at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle WA. Tickets are ON SALE NOW! Click the link below to purchase your ticket now before the price increases! ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gjQR6ua3 #pdawcc #ai #biopharma #development #manufacturing

🌟 Meet Sebastian Scheler, one of our panelists for our upcoming AI in Biopharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing Conference hosted at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, NV! As the co-founder and leader of a multidisciplinary team of life science professionals and software developers at Innerspace, Sebastian is passionate about driving innovation through Innerspace's Frame-by-Frame Technology—an automated solution for process modelling, risk assessment, and knowledge management. Innerspace's technology aims to empower organizations to automate and design processes, streamline operations, improve scalability, and mitigate risks in life science manufacturing processes. As Managing Director at Innerspace, Sebastian oversees the continuous development and optimization of the Frame-by-Frame Technology to ensure it remains at the forefront of industry innovation. Additionally, Sebastian is proud to contribute as a trainer, delivering expert-led courses that enhance industry standards. Tickets are ON SALE NOW! Click the link below to purchase your ticket now before the price increases! ⬇️ https://lnkd.in/gjQR6ua3 #pdawcc #ai #biopharma #development #manufacturing

The PDA West Coast Chapter (PDA WCC) is proud to present our Q4 2024 Volunteer of the Quarter Award recipient: Nikoo Arasteh! Nikoo Arasteh is a Sr. Director, Head of Quality Assurance at Jaguar Health and an active Board Member with the PDA West Coast Chapter. Nikoo recently co-lead and organized the PDA West Coast Chapter (PDA WCC)'s 2nd Annual Cell & Gene Therapy Gala held at the California Academy of Sciences. Nikoo has 20+ years of industry experience that spans different functions alongside a history of volunteering. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her family and traveling. Thank you for your dedication and contributions to PDA WCC, Nikoo!