Robert Willette

Dr. Willette recently served as interim chief science officer at Complexa Therapeutics and ImmunoMet Therapeutics. Previously, he had a 30-year career at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), most recently as vice president and head of their heart failure and renal discovery performance unit where he was responsible for pre-clinical discovery and clinical proof of concept. During his tenure at GSK, he led the discovery and development of candidates the cardiopulmonary, cerebrovascular and renal space, including TRPV4 blockers and p38 inhibitors that are currently in late-stage development at GSK. Dr. Willette was involved in the negotiation of a 2015 partnership with Idera Pharmaceuticals to collaborate on the development of antisense therapeutics against renal disease targets.

He also served as an industry mentor at the Perelman School of Medicine’s Institute of Translational Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He was a founding member of the Perelman School of Medicine’s Transformative Research in Diabetic Nephropathy (TRIDENT) initiative, which created a consortium of industry and academic experts from industry, medicine and academia with the goal of improving the lives of people affected by diabetic kidney disease.

Dr. Willette has authored more than 150 original peer-reviewed research papers and is a recipient of the American Heart Association’s Robert Seikert Award for outstanding stroke research and the George Koelle Award for contributions in Pharmacology. He earned his doctoral degree from the department of pharmacology at Rutgers University, School of Medicine and Dentistry in NJ, where he studied the central control of cardiopulmonary function. He conducted postdoctoral training at the Veterans Administration in NJ, Rutgers University and the Weill Medical College at Cornell University.