Ruxandra Draghia-Akli

Ruxandra Draghia-Akli, leads Johnson & Johnson Global Public Health R&D, advancing discovery, development, and technology capabilities in collaboration with internal and external partners. Ruxandra’ s deep knowledge of R&D is matched by an equally deep commitment to improving health for everyone, everywhere. Her passion for improving health equity has propelled novel approaches to entrenched, expanding, and emerging health threats. Under her leadership, GPH R&D adds value and generates new external innovation opportunities through our J&J Centers for Global Health Discovery and other external partnerships. Ruxandra is a cross-sector leader with experience in industry, government, and academia. Formerly, she led Medical and Scientific Affairs for vaccines at Merck, and she worked for the European Commission, first as Director and later as Deputy Director General. At the Commission, Ruxandra oversaw research and innovation programmatic initiatives, led public-private partnerships, global programs and consortia, and designed novel research financial instruments, while contributing to the Commission’s strategy for improving public health. Ruxandra has a track record of unlocking innovation in biotechnology as both a founder and head of research at ADViSYS, Inc. and VGX Pharmaceuticals (now Inovio Pharmaceuticals) and helping shepherd cross-industry innovation as the Co-Chair of the Therapeutics Clinical Working Group of Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV). Ruxandra holds a M.D. from Carol Davila University, Romania, and a Ph.D. in human genetics from the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences. She undertook doctoral training at University Rene Descartes in Paris, France and a postdoctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, with a focus on rare diseases, molecular biology, gene therapy and novel vaccines. Ruxandra was honored to be recognized in 2022 as one of the top Women in Biopharma, engaged in drug discovery and development worldwide. Ruxandra has authored and co-authored more than 100 papers and holds over 100 patents.