Vikas Karande

Preclinical pharmacology and DMPK lead for multiple small molecule drug discovery programs from early discovery to clinical candidate nomination.

Supported 20 years of profiling of multiple NCEs for their pharmacology activities.

Currently for the last 3 years supporting profiling of NCEs for their DMPK properties.

Accomplished scientific excellence award for major contribution in a screening of novel PDE4 inhibitor, Adenosine receptors antagonist, mPGES1 inhibitor, RORyT inhibitor, HPK1 inhibitor, and CBL-b inhibitor.

Therapeutic areas supported /supporting :

Immuno-oncology, Asthma, COPD, Psoriasis, IBD, Arthritis, MS, and Pain.

Summary of Career 

Profile Summary as pharmacology and DMPK Senior Scientist - NCE discovery Project lead

• An ambitious and self-driven professional with extensive knowledge of small molecule drug discovery with a strong scientific background in immunology and immuno-oncology area with new technical and conceptual ideas. 

• Evaluating, developing, and conducting in vivo animal studies for the conduct of proof-of-concept and proof-of-mechanism studies in areas of immunology such as asthma, COPD, fibrosis, RA, psoriasis, MS, and immuno-oncology.

• DMPK expert for all stages of discovery (from Hit ID to clinical candidate selection) and represent the DMPK function on cross-functional project teams. 

• Evaluating, selecting, and identifying the pros/cons of the new targets in both immunology and immuno-oncology areas. 

• Contributing to the immune-oncology area research team with active surveillance of scientific literature and provision of subject matter expertise to help evaluate new animal models and project opportunities.

• Leading both immunology and immuno-oncology discovery projects from the pharmacology and DMPK side. 

• Providing scientific and technical expertise for the design, planning, execution, and analysis of animal experiments to assess in vivo efficacy, mechanism of action, safety, and PK/PD profiles of novel therapeutics. 

• Overseeing the design, planning, interpretation, and communication of preclinical DMPK-related studies and effectively communicating the relevant findings to multidisciplinary project teams, management, and external partners.

• Performing all DMPK studies (metabolic stability, matrix stability, permeability, and in-vivo pharmacokinetics) and interpreting their data in both rodent and non-rodent species by Phoenix WinNonlin Software. Interpreting and correlating PK-PD data.

• Ensuring laboratory practices and animal ethics submissions meet deadlines and comply with all relevant regulations.

• Performing and teaching the most common regulated procedures: animal handling, routes of administration of test agents e.g., ip, iv, sc, blood collection, necropsy and preparation of tissue for histology, molecular or biochemical profiling, collection of data, collection of Cerebral spinal fluid, various surgical techniques like BDC and JVC to sub-ordinates or juniors.

• Independently reviewing and summarizing results and effectively integrating ADME/DMPK information to guide lead optimization and/or the selection of development candidates.

• Collaborating closely with the functional groups within DMPK, as well as key external stakeholders such as Medicinal/Computational Chemistry, Discovery Biology, Non-Clinical Safety, and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

• Flexible supporting multiple research projects in the immune-oncology area pre-clinical project portfolio.

• Supporting IND submissions, patent applications, internal reports, and scientific poster/publication writing. 

• Dealing with and working with external CROs for conducting DMPK and pharmacology studies.

NCE Drug Discovery Career History

• Joined the R&D pharmacology group of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals in April 2011 as Research Scientist, and set up in-vivo acute and chronic inflammatory pain models to assess mPGES1 inhibitors. 
• Accomplished scientific excellence award for major contribution in a screening of novel mPGES1 inhibitor-GRC 27864 (Achievement – mPGES1 program deal with Forest lab, USA). 
• Setting up and validation of immunology disease animal models for screening of RORУT inhibitors. 
• Accomplished scientific excellence award for major contribution in the screening of novel RORУT inhibitor-GRC 39815. Also evaluated, selected, and identified the pros/cons of new drug targets for immunology diseases.
• Since January 2016 working as a senior research Scientist with the additional responsibility of leading immuno-oncology projects such as MAP4K1/HPK1 inhibitor from the pharmacology side and contributing toward screening of MAP4K1/HPK1 inhibitors in both Syngeneic (CT26, LLC, MC38, MC38hPDL1, and B16F10) and Xenogeneic (CT26) models. Accomplished scientific excellence award for major contribution in the screening of novel MAP4K1/HPK1 inhibitor-GRC 54276.

• Also evaluated, selected, and identified the pros/cons of new drug targets for immunology and immuno-oncology area. Identified and proposed USP7 as a new target for immune oncology and HDAC6 as a new target for immunology.

• Since April 2020 working as a senior research scientist with additional responsibility to lead discovery projects from the DMPK side for both immunology (NLRP3) and Immuno-oncology (HPK1 and CBL-b) targets and conduct/execute the ADME-pharmacokinetics studies. Accomplished scientific excellence award for a major contribution to the screening of novel HPK1, CBL-b, and NLRP3 inhibitors.

• Joined the discovery biology group of Advinus Therapeutics Pvt. Ltd in August 2006 as Senior Research Scientist-I. The initial role was to set up a radioactivity laboratory for conducting radioligand binding assays in THP1 cell membrane for immunology projects adenosine receptors (A1, A2b, A2A, and A3) and CCR1 antagonist.

• Contributed towards set up of in-vitro/ ex- vivo assays and in- vivo preclinical models for both metabolic (HAO2 inhibitor, GPR119 antagonist, SGLT2 inhibitor, and GK activator) and immunology (CCR1 inhibitor) projects.

• Since April 2009 I worked as Principal Research Scientist-I with additional responsibility to lead immunology project A2B antagonist from the pharmacology side for both respiratory (Asthma/COPD) and IBD indications (Achievement – Accomplished scientific excellence award for major contribution in the screening of novel A2B antagonist PNQ 103 for COPD and PNQ 201 for IBD indications). 

• Apart from this evaluated, selected, and identified the pros/cons of new drug targets for the immunology area.

• Joined the R&D pharmacology group of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals in April 2000 as Research Associate/Officer.

• I was responsible for the standardization and validation of various preclinical in-vivo efficacy models of various immunological diseases including pain.

• Many new chemical entities of various drug discovery programs (PDE4, CB1/CB2, and TRPV1) were profiled for their in-vivo efficacy (Achievement - Scientific excellence award for major contribution in a screening of novel PDE4 inhibitor Oglemilast-GRC 3886 and Revamilast-GRC 4039)

Master in pharmaceutical sciences