Erica Whitaker, Ph.D., is Vice President and Head of UCB Ventures. She began her career at UCB in 2010 as Vice President, Strategy & Partnering, NewMedicines (drug discovery through clinical proof of concept), where she developed and led the UCB-Harvard Research Alliance. In 2012, she became a member of an internal strategy team that shaped UCB’s Patient Value Strategy. As Head of Market Access for Europe, the Middle East and Africa from 2013-2017, Dr. Whitaker was instrumental in developing regional patient access and pricing strategies and working with affiliates to drive local execution. During her tenure, she was the Chair of the Healthcare Systems Working Group of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).
Dr. Whitaker attended Brown University, where she received her B.A. degrees in Biology and in Comparative Literature. She travelled to the U.K. on a Marshall Scholarship and obtained a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Edinburgh, followed by an M.B.A. from Heriot-Watt University Business School in Edinburgh.
