News Release

Victoria Hale of Institute for OneWorld Health Named Fellow by International Women's Forum

Recognition caps awards by Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Tech Museum of Innovation in last three weeks

Grant and Award Announcement

Institute for OneWorld Health

The Institute for OneWorld Health, the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the United States, today announced that CEO Victoria Hale, Ph.D., has been named a Leadership Foundation Fellow for 2003-2004. Hale is one of 14 women selected from a field of more than 50 finalists from all over the world. She is founder and CEO of OneWorld Health, whose experienced team of pharmaceutical scientists uncovers promising drug candidates and advances them through clinical trials and regulatory approval to treat the poorest people in the developing world.

This honor is the third international award in three weeks that recognizes Hale's leadership and vision in establishing OneWorld Health. On Sept. 3 she was named one of five global laureates in health by the Tech Museum of Innovation (San Jose, Calif.). One week prior to that, she was selected as one of 10 outstanding global entrepreneurs by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in Geneva, Switzerland (http://www.oneworldhealth.org/news/news.html).

The Leadership Foundation is the educational and charitable arm of the International Women's Forum, a global association of about 3,800 top women leaders from 20 countries. The Leadership Foundation Fellows Program is the only leadership training of its kind in the world, designed for women of cultural, professional and geographic diversity. Aimed at high potential women who have the ability to excel at the highest levels of their organizations, the Fellows Program sustains, grooms and promotes up-and-coming women leaders.

Hale's pharmaceutical career spans 15 years, including regulatory and industry experience at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and biotech pioneer Genentech, Inc. At the FDA, Hale and a team of colleagues led a successful two-year campaign to ensure women and minorities were included in clinical trials, ending an exclusionary practice that persisted into the 1990s. She is an advisor to the World Health Organization for building ethical review capacity in the developing world, and has served as Expert Reviewer to the National Institutes of Health on the topic of biodiversity. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California at San Francisco, where she maintains a faculty position. Under Hale's leadership, the three-year-old company has developed a drug portfolio, ranging from early-stage compounds to a late-stage drug in clinical trials, in four deadly parasitic disease areas: malaria, diarrhea, leishmaniasis, and Chagas. Strategic collaborations with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, university and government organizations have resulted in accelerated drug development and promising new treatments for people in the developing world.

"As a woman in a predominantly male scientific culture and as a social entrepreneur carving out new territory for an enterprise that is also lacking female mentorship, leveraging institutional change requires powerful connections and partnerships," Hale says. "This fellowship is a tremendous opportunity to learn and share skills and insight with women at the vanguard of leadership around the world."

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The Leadership Foundation Program offers Fellows skills training, insight and teaching from internationally acclaimed experts and select members of the International Women's Forum, many of whom are pioneers in breaking barriers of gender, race, and bias. As a Fellow, Hale will participate in a program spread over the next 12 months that includes customized training sessions at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and Cambridge University. More information on the International Women's Foundation may be found at http://www.iwforum.org/leadership/

The Institute for OneWorld Health advances global health by developing new, affordable medicines for infectious diseases that disproportionately affect people in the developing world. OneWorld Health accomplishes this through an entrepreneurial business model in which its scientists identify promising drug leads and drive their development from pre-clinical studies to clinical trials through regulatory approval. The Institute for OneWorld Health, headquartered in San Francisco, Calif., is a tax-exempt 501(c) (3), U.S. corporation (http://www.oneworldhealth.org).


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