Richard Austin

Dr. Richard Austin is a Pharmaceutical R&D veteran with 25 years of experience ranging from the laboratory bench to management. His professional career began as a medicinal chemist with Burroughs Wellcome (eventually Glaxo SmithKline) in 1993 at its site in Research Triangle Park, NC. He took a similar role with Selectide (eventually Sanofi) in 1997. Richard moved into a research operations role in 2011, responsible for managing the operational aspects of Sanofi’s science at its Tucson Research Center. As a member of the site leadership team, he managed R&D operational and capital spending, laboratory equipment maintenance and repair, R&D contract creation, and budget creation. He holds an Organic Chemistry PhD (University of Texas at Austin) and an MBA in Pharmaceutical Management (Drexel University). Richard completed postdoctoral training in Bioorganic Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley. He is an angel investor with Tucson’s Desert Angels and a commercialization partner with the University of Arizona’s technology transfer office.