Stephen Pitt

Global Head of External Innovation, Interventional Oncology at Johnson & Johnson

Speaker

Stephen is the Global Head of External Innovation/Alliance Management and has built a robust portfolio of strategically aligned external assets for Interventional Oncology. Specifically, he has delivered more than15 deals focused on intratumoral therapies for Lung and Head & Neck cancers. His team is responsible for leading landscaping, search & evaluation, cross-functional due diligence assessments, scientific/clinical evaluations, IP strategy, building/shaping the external community, competitive intelligence, partnering with transactors through deal close, and alliance management post-deal.

Stephen has over 14 years of experience in J&J in a variety of roles. Most recently he was the Head of JLABS US Northeast where he incubated over 100+ healthcare startups and led 5 sites across New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. While at JLABS, Stephen built a strategically aligned start-up portfolio that resulted in over 10 deals with J&J. Stephen built strong external networks with academia groups, KOLs, incubators/accelerators, investment firms, government entities, etc.

Stephen’s career spans over two decades, where he has continually increased his responsibilities as a R&D healthcare leader in drug discovery, pharmaceutical development, and external innovation at Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Bayer, and in biotech. Stephen has a strong ability to identify and catalyze synergistic value with external partners to deliver strategically aligned assets that gain internal executive-level funding and expand overall business strategies to rapidly commercialize scientific breakthroughs.

Stephen earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from Cornell Medical School and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Stephen pioneered computational/AI based molecular dynamics drug discovery approaches and applied these novel techniques to study RNA. He elucidated structural dynamic-ensemble models and discovered novel druggable binding surfaces/hidden RNA conformational states. He also holds several patents and has published in top scientific journals.