David Kelly

David has over two decades of executive management experience in clinical development. He’s built clinical teams and managed global trials in a variety of medical specialty areas including oncology, diabetes, cardiovascular, ophthalmology, infectious disease, renal, pain and hormone replacement.

In 2006, he founded Kelly Clinical Consultants, a functional service provider that supplied Clinical Research Associates and Project Management for long-term trials. Clients included many of the world’s leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Among the many trials under the company’s supervision, they also trained, mentored, and managed a team of Russian CRA’s for a hypercholesterolemia trial, and conducted performance evaluations for 28 independent regional contract CRAs.

In 2010, with the help of a private equity investor, Kelly Clinical Consultants became KPS Life. The headquarters were moved from Philadelphia, PA to New York, NY. The platform of a domestic US functional service provider transitioned to a global focus. Today KPS has operations on six continents and practically every country.

Before founding Kelly Clinical Consultants, David served in numerous senior level positions at major global drug companies. At Novartis Pharmaceuticals, he was a clinical research scientist, project manager and director, responsible for 175 Phase III sites worldwide, as well as 20 clinical research associates in a global long term HTN program.

Prior to that, David was senior lead clinical researcher at Wyeth, in the women’s health therapeutic group. He also served at Amylin Pharmaceuticals with a focus on diabetes and diabetic retinopathy. At SmithKline Beecham and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, he was a regional clinical research associate for the Pulmonary and Diabetes therapeutic unit.

David began his career at the global CRO Covance in 1995 as a clinical research associate monitoring clinical drug trials for developmental phase III and IV for sponsor pharmaceutical companies.

David earned his BA in Biology from Rutgers University and continued with graduate studies in Molecular Biology at Rutgers University. His graduate study work focused on cancer and the enzyme target of topoisomerase. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and three sons.