Dr. Anabella Villalobos brings 35 years of biopharmaceutical leadership with
Pfizer and Biogen along with a personal commitment to discovering and
delivering medicinal solutions to patients. Her significant industry
experience lies in delivery of development candidates, INDs, and clinical
study results, and advancing partnership opportunities by building strong
relationships and scientific credibility.
From 2017-2025, Dr. Villalobos was head of Biotherapeutics and Medicinal
Sciences at Biogen, where she was responsible for the delivery of
high-quality, differentiated drug candidates for neurological, rare, and
auto-immune diseases across multiple modalities, including small
molecules, biologics, oligonucleotides, and gene therapy.
Prior to Biogen, Dr. Villalobos was with Pfizer for 28 years where she
most recently served as Vice President of Medicinal Synthesis
Technologies and Neuroscience Medicinal Chemistry. As the leader of
several medicinal chemistry groups throughout her tenure at Pfizer, Dr.
Villalobos’ teams delivered more than 30 small molecule candidates
to combat Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease,
schizophrenia, depression, and insomnia. Noteworthy are Ogsiveo®
(SpringWorks) and tavapadon (AbbVie) which reached the market and proof
of concept in Phase 3 studies, respectively. Dr. Villalobos also
championed new scientific directions that have improved design practices
in medicinal chemistry including the Central Nervous System Multi-Parameter
Optimization (CNS MPO).
Dr. Villalobos obtained her B.S. in Chemistry at the University of
Panama and her Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Kansas
where she was a Fulbright-Hayes fellow. She was a National Institutes of
Health Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University in synthetic organic
chemistry for two years.