Jeffrey A. Stafford, Ph.D.
Vice President of Chemistry
Dr. Jeffrey A. Stafford is the Vice President of Chemistry at Takeda San Diego. Dr. Stafford's principal responsibilities include managing the research activities of both Chemistry and Computational Sciences. Using structure-based drug design and contemporary medicinal chemistry, his teams concentrate on producing lead drug candidates and performing all necessary studies to optimize the leads to the level of pre-clinical candidates or beyond.
Prior to joining Takeda San Diego, Dr. Stafford served as Director of Chemistry in Oncology at Glaxo SmithKline, Inc., Research Triangle Park, where he had strategic responsibility for the portfolio of Lead Optimization programs within oncology. During his tenure at Glaxo SmithKline (GSK), Dr. Stafford was involved in therapeutic programs in inflammation, virology, neuroscience, and oncology, and he led the research team in the discovery of GW786034 (pazopanib), now in phase III clinical development for the treatment of solid tumors. Dr. Stafford has co-authored over 40 peer-reviewed manuscripts and abstracts, has been an invited speaker at numerous domestic and international conferences, and serves as a reviewer on several international chemistry journals.
Dr. Stafford is a co-inventor on over 35 patents, issued or pending. He received his B.S. in Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1984 and received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Cornell University in 1989. Dr. Stafford also served as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley from 1989-1991 in the labs of Professor Clayton Heathcock.
