Your Trusted Medical Consulting Partner

Karen Veverka, PhD

Over 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry with broad, multinational experience in every facet of development and across multiple therapeutic areas including dermatology (psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, chronic hand eczema, actinic keratosis) neurology, and immunology. Important to her ongoing work, Dr. Veverka has solid preclinical and clinical R/D experience including Phase I to IV clinical trial design and optimization with a focus on approvable and promotable endpoints, product differentiation and understanding & applying mechanistic insights, regulatory expertise, gathering insights and analytics from investigators and KOLs, clinical trial feasibility and operations, and working as team member in several licensing (in and out) research collaborations and partnerships, in addition to other skills. She has deep fundamental knowledge of key elements which make products commercially successful.

From 2021 to July 2024, Dr. Veverka served as VP of Medical at ASLAN Pharmaceuticals where she drove the clinical development and medical affairs for eblasakimab, a fully human monoclonal antibody which blocks IL-13Ra1. And prior to that Senior Medical Director at LEO Pharma Inc. (US) [products across Phase II to IV research including tralokinumab, ingenol mebutate, cal/BD foam, and delgocitinib] and Novartis [key products in Phase III and IV research including fingolimod, secukinumab, canakinumab]. Over her career, Dr. Veverka has provided medical strategy and scientific support across several indications in neurology and inflammatory disease and played critical roles in advancing pre-commercial pipeline products, launching numerous products and expanding existing commercial programs which included market shaping, strategy, and influencing around existing and new indications. For ~10 years, she served as Director of Preclinical Discovery and Development with emphasis on identifying and optimizing new molecular entities, with progressive research at the bench, leading multidisciplinary R/D teams, and as a part of the leadership team at GTx, Inc. a men’s health-focused biopharmaceutical company [key products across discovery to Phase I to Phase III research including ostarine, andarine, toremifene], bringing several emerging product lead molecules from discovery to Phase III with continuing research and design of comprehensive global program development strategies.

Dr. Veverka earned her Ph.D. at The Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in Rochester, MN and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital prior to entering the pharmaceutical industry. She is named on dozens of U.S. and International awarded and pending patent applications and has co-authored over 26 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts, has been a key contributor to several INDs, NDA/BLAs and corresponding regulatory filings with worldwide health authorities.

President, ACORN Medical