Rick Lindberg, PhD

Dr. Rick Lindberg, until 2017, was Executive Director and Head of the Centers for Therapeutic Innovation – California (CTI-California) at Pfizer. As the Head of CTI-California, Rick was responsible for research sites in San Francisco and San Diego that worked with west coast and Australian universities in intimate and innovative collaborations. He led an effort to identify new drug discovery programs and managed a portfolio designed to quickly translate academic science into clinical candidates and Phase 1 clinical trials. As part of the CTI leadership team he reviewed over a thousand academic proposals and selected over thirty projects that resulted in many clinical candidates either heading to or in clinical trials. Before joining Pfizer in 2011, Rick was at Amgen for 19 years, lastly as Executive Director in Discovery Research, directing drug discovery efforts for several metabolic disorders. He also served as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Amgen Ventures and as a member of the General Medicine Therapeutic Area Strategic Committee. Before working in metabolic disorders, Rick made significant contributions to the tyrosine kinase and signal transduction fields at Amgen, and prior to that at the Salk Institute of Biology while in the Laboratory of Tony Hunter. He has co-authored over seventy scientific articles and patents, including ten book chapters and review articles. Rick holds a BS in Zoology and a MS in Physiology from Washington State University and a PhD in Biology from University of California, San Diego.