(US and Canada) Sanofi, an innovative global healthcare company, has appointed Shameer Khader, Ph.D., as Executive Director. In his new role, Khader is the global head of the data science, data engineering and computational biology areas to accelerate drug/target discovery, development and repositioning.

Khader brings to Sanofi more than a decade of experience in drug discovery, bioinformatics, big data, and biomedical data science. He is an R&D-focused data science leader with experience in building and leading global analytics, data science, AI/ML, and bioinformatics teams. He has strong domain experience across the verticals in pharma, biotech, med-tech, digital health, precision medicine, genomics and drug development. 

Before joining Sanofi, Khader was the Senior Director over AI/ML, data science, digital health and bioinformatics for AstraZeneca. In a LinkedIn post, Khader shared that some of favorite achievements at AstraZeneca include the design, development and deployment of more than 90% of models into enterprise-scale AI solutions with a significant user base, and the drive to embed the value-driven AI and biomedical big data into the DNA of drug discovery to help bring life saving drugs to the patients.

An accomplished scientist with experience in accelerating pharma/biotech/healthcare innovation using biomedical data and technology, Khader has received top recognitions for his work including, “One of the 100 Leading Pioneers Of AI Drug Development” in 2019 by Forbes/Deep Knowledge Ventures and “One of the 16 Data Scientists making vital breakthrough in healthcare” in 2016 by Pokit Blog/Pokitdok.