Nonclinical Statistics in Pharmaceutical Industry
Organizers
Speaker
Wei Zhao
Time
Saturday, August 1, 2026 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Venue
Shuangqing-B725
Online
Zoom 928 682 9093
(BIMSA)
Abstract
Non-clinical statistics runs across the entire pipeline of drug development, organized around four pillars: Drug Discovery, Safety/Toxicology, Chemistry Manufacturing & Controls (CMC), and Data Science. In this presentation, we will discuss what the pharmaceutical industry is and the role of nonclinical statistician.
Speaker Intro
Wei Zhao is Senior Director of Data Science at Fate Therapeutics. Dr. Zhao earned his Ph.D degree in Statistics from University of Florida and received further post-doctoral training from UCLA. Dr. Zhao publishes statistical methods extensively in statistical genetics/genomics, virtual screening, process monitoring, drug combination methodology, etc. He also has working experience in early phase I trial design, statistical methods in assay development, tech transfer, biomarker analysis, PKPD modeling etc. One of his paper A New Bliss Independence Model to Analyze Drug Combination Data received SLAS Discovery Readers’ Choice Award in 2017. In recent years, Dr. Zhao spends more time teaching. He is an adjunct professor in George Washington University and University of Maryland.
Dr. Zhao is a strong believer that customized computational tools will drastically improve the efficiency and quality of routine data visualization and analysis. At Fate Therapeutics, he develops automated systems to empower scientists to accomplish tasks unimaginable before.