Howard Chang: Why I Joined Amgen – A Once-in-a-Lifetime Opportunity
Howard Chang, SVP Global Research & Chief Scientific Officer at Amgen, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“When I picked up the phone to hear Jay Bradner ask if I’d consider joining Amgen, I wasn’t looking for a change. But the more we talked, the more I realized this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—to take everything I’d learned about the human genome, from disease genes to the vast “genomic dark matter,” and apply it directly to creating new medicines for patients.
My vision here is simple but ambitious: uncover new targets rooted in deep human genetic evidence, design modular therapeutics that can be combined like precision tools, and deliver them exactly where they’re needed in the body. By bringing these pillars together, we can think beyond traditional drug design and tackle disease at its biological core.
The pace of discovery is exhilarating. We can now connect rare non-coding variants to disease pathways, understand how long non-coding RNAs drive immune dysregulation, and explore novel cancer drivers like extrachromosomal DNA. Paired with powerful delivery technologies and flexibility in modality choice, these insights open a new frontier in oncology, immunology, cardiometabolic, and rare disease research.
It’s a privilege to work with such talented colleagues at Amgen to turn scientific insight into real-world treatments. My thanks to Nature Reviews Drug Discovery and Asher Mullard for capturing both this exciting transition and my vision for the road ahead.
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