Patricia Williams, PhD, is a pharmaceutical executive with over 35 years of experience in drug discovery and development in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and contract service industries. Dr. Williams is currently the President & CEO of IND Directions, LLC, a drug development consulting and service company located in Northern Virginia. Dr. Williams was the founder, co-owner and Chief Operating Officer of Summit Drug Development Services, LLC, a drug development service company in Rockville, Maryland for five years. She has established a number of innovative safety assessment and drug development programs in her career and has held various management positions at Bristol-Myers Company, Eli Lilly, American Cyanamid, BioChem Therapeutic, Inc., Glycomed, Inc./Ligand Pharmaceuticals, TherImmune Research/Gene Logic Corp and SRA Life Sciences. Dr. Williams has authored over 50 manuscripts and review articles in toxicology and pharmacology. She received a B.S. in Physiology from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan (1974), an M.S. in Physiology from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona (1977), and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the State University of New York (SUNY)/Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, New York (1981).