Jim Wilson

Los Altos Hills, CA

Dr. Jim Wilson has over 25 years experience leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostic companies. He is currently Chairman of NuGEN Technologies, a venture stage life science tools company selling reagents that amplify small amounts of RNA for gene expression profiling, Director of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, a company selling two first in class drugs for diabetes (Byetta and Symlin) and Chariman for Corcept Therapeutics, a bio-pharmaceutical company developing drugs for psychotic depression, Alzheimer?s and weight reduction. Previously Jim acted as the Chairman of Amira Medical, a medical diagnostic company that developed and marketed a less invasive, painless homeglucose test that was sold to Roche Diagnostics. Jim was also President, COO and Director of Syntex. He redirected Research and Development, yielding the strongest pipeline in the company?s history. When Roche acquired this company in 1994, Syntex boasted $1 billion in cash and three major drugs (CellCept, Oral Cytovene and Aleve) pending FDA approval. In 1989, Jim acted as Chairman and CEO for Neurex, where his research focused on a novel class of neuronal calcium channel blockers, raised two rounds of venture capital and recruited a successor CEO. Neurex was sold to Elan Corporation for over $700 million. Previous to that Jim was designated the CEO of LifeScan, the glucose monitoring company that used product innovation and customer service to successfully challenge Bayer and Boehringer Mannheim. LifeScan?s One Touch eventually became the leading home glucose monitor reaching $1.5 billion in sales, and was sold to Johnson & Johnson in 1986. In 1977, Jim became President for Syntex Ophthalmics where he wrote the business plan and later acquired the technology that created this new division. This group pioneered gas permeable and ultra thin contact lenses, bringing these products to market in record time. Jim Wilson received his B.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Arizona.