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Christopher Tan, PhD

Christopher Tan is a Director in Business Development & Licensing in Cambridge, MA, USA. His primary responsibility is to serve as a Merck and Co. spokesperson and scientific prospector for identifying, evaluating, and championing new research collaborations, preclinical compounds, clinical compounds and/ or technologies in the New England States and Eastern Canada, through licensing, acquisition, collaborations, co-development agreements, and strategic alliances.

He joined Merck in 2003 in Montreal, Canada as an In Vivo Pharmacology Senior Research Scientist where he established animal models of lung disease. Following five years as lead Pharmacologist of several oral and inhaled Respiratory programs, the site realigned to Infectious Diseases and Vaccines, where he led the Pharmacology team to implement bacterial infection animal models. In 2010, he relocated to Kenilworth, NJ to establish and direct a new team to implement infection animal models and to directly lead externalization of select in vivo disease models. In 2012, he transitioned to Discovery-Biology where he was Director in Infectious Diseases (Bacteriology), and served as Project Lead for two antibacterial Discovery programs, as Manager for an internal Discovery team, and as an external collaborator with industrial and academic partners for project and program implementation. As Project Lead, he collaborated with core team members for project management; as People Manager, he ensured that direct report scientists analyzed, interpreted, and shared results to enable decision making, and facilitated visibility, development, and career progression for reports.

Chris obtained his Ph.D. in 1999 in Pharmacology & Toxicology at Western University in London, Canada, studying tyrosine kinase cross-regulation of G protein-coupled receptor signaling in hypertension, and pursued postdoctoral studies in Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, studying in vitro and in vivo partial agonism of the alpha2A-adrenergic receptor in health and disease.