Dr. Kerry Blanchard, MD, PhD

CEO, Chairman and Founder at Perpetual Medicines

Speaker

Dr. Blanchard has been a drug hunter and an entrepreneur for four decades. He cofounded Perpetual Medicines, a peptide therapeutics/computational AI platform company, with Gordian Ventures. Previously, he was the CEO of Everest Medicines after having served as Operating Partner at CBC Group. He was Chief Science Officer at Innovent Biologics. Before Innovent, Dr. Blanchard was the Senior Vice President of Lilly China Drug Development and External Innovation. He built and executed the company’s external partnership drug development portfolio model in China. He played critical roles in the discovery and development of 4 approved drugs including abemaclicib.

His interests include discovering and developing medicines and the application of translational research principles to drug discovery. He was a co-founder and a member of the Board of Directors of the Asian Cancer Research Group, a not-for-profit company focused on the generation and dissemination of genetic and clinical data on cancers of importance in Asia. He received a BS degree in chemistry in 1977, a PhD in Biochemistry in 1982, and an MD in 1985 from Indiana University. He completed a residency in Internal Medicine and fellowships in Hematology and Medical Oncology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Blanchard was a Damon Runyon Fellow and a Fellow of the American Cancer Society. Prior to coming to Eli Lilly and Company in 2000, he was a tenured Professor of Medicine and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, LA. He was a member of the board for Lilly China and Zymeworks INC and was the co-chairmen of the Lilly Asia Ventures Investment Committee.