John W Holaday, PhD
Dr Holaday joined QRxPharma in 2007 as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, and is also President of QRxPharma’s US operations. Dr Holaday brings 39 years of experience as a scientist, executive manager of biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, and as a banker.
Dr Holaday has extensive experience building specialty pharmaceutical companies. In 1992, Dr Holaday was a cofounder of EntreMed Inc (NASDAQ: ENMD), of which he served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board. In 1988, Dr Holaday also co-founded Medicis Pharmaceutical Corporation (NYSE: MRX), where he served as a Board Director, as Scientific Director, and as Senior Vice President for Research and Development. Dr Holaday also founded MaxCyte Inc, a cell therapy company, where he served as Chairman until retiring in 2003. Dr Holaday also sits on the boards of CytImmune Sciences Inc, a privately held cancer research company, Xceleron, a private UK firm that accelerates clinical trials, and Accelovance, a privately held contract research organisation within the US and China. From 1968 to 1989, Dr Holaday served as a Captain in the US Army and subsequently as a senior civilian employee at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, where he founded the Neuropharmacology Branch in 1980.
Dr Holaday currently serves as an officer and Fellow in several biomedical societies and has authored and edited over 200 scientific articles in journals and books. He holds over 30 patents. He served as Chairman of the Maryland BioAlliance, is a Judge for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2003 to present) and was named to the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Hall of Fame in 2006. Dr Holaday is an Associate Professor of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine and Senior Lecturer in Medicine at The Johns Hopkins University of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland. Dr Holaday obtained his Doctorate in Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco in 1977.