Leigh Ann Burns Naas is an independent consultant and President of Magnolia Consulting Services, LLC. The consulting company provides advice in the areas of nonclinical safety and strategic planning for drug development, as well as technical due diligence for in-licensing of business development opportunities. The experience she brings to her clients stems from a 25+ year career in product development and safety, 18 of the most recent in the biopharmaceutical industry. Throughout her career, her work has focused on strategic aspects and the design of safety programs to support chemical product development and registration, and the clinical development and licensure for small molecules and biotherapeutics, including vaccines.
Prior to launching her company, Leigh Ann was Vice President and Head of Nonclinical Safety & Pathobiology at Gilead Sciences in Foster City, CA where, in addition to administrative activities, she oversaw the strategic aspects of nonclinical safety and pathobiology for the company’s diverse research and development portfolio. She also gained extensive experience through her time as a Drug Safety Therapeutic Area Leader for antivirals, global infectious disease and oncology at Pfizer. Her early experience includes serving as the Immunotoxicology Lab Supervisor in the Toxicology Laboratory and then Group Leader for America’s Product Toxicology at Dow Corning Corporation (now The Dow Chemical Company).
Leigh Ann has demonstrated a long commitment to promoting advancements in basic and applied toxicology and the impact of toxicological sciences on human and environmental health across multiple scientific organizations and in the literature, and in the training/education of the next generation of toxicologists. She is a member of the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Toxicology and Journal of Immunotoxicology, and the editor of two volumes of Comprehensive Toxicology, 3rd Edition (Immune and Hematopoietic Systems). She is a Past President of the Society of Toxicology, the American College of Toxicology, and the Academy of Toxicological Sciences, is a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Toxicology and is also a European Registered Toxicologist (UK). Leigh Ann received her doctorate degree in pharmacology and toxicology from the Medical College of Virginia/VCU in 1992 with an emphasis in immunotoxicology and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in biochemical and molecular immunology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.