Ramachandra G. Naik, MD, is a US board-certified endocrinologist at NYU Langone Health. He is a clinical professor of medicine and Director, Diabetes Clinical Research, in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY. He has over three decades of global experience in patient care, clinical research, teaching, and drug and device development.
Dr. Naik completed his endocrinology fellowship and board certifications (D.M., Endocrinology, 1993 and Diplomate of the National Boards, Endocrinology, 1993) from All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, and later pursued an additional fellowship program at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA (1996-98). He was a recipient of Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation post-doctoral fellowship award at the University of Washington.
Dr. Naik spent more than a decade of his professional career, as a consultant endocrinologist, at Bombay Hospital in Mumbai, India. He relocated to the United States in 2007 to join as an assistant professor of medicine and pediatrics at Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes at the University of Colorado Denver, where he was involved in patient care and clinical research in type 1 diabetes.
Dr. Naik transitioned into biopharmaceutical industry in 2009 and spent the next eight years in roles of progressively increasing responsibility, providing clinical leadership in global drug development (proof-of concept through phase 3) and device development. Initially, as a Director in Global Cardiovascular Metabolism Franchise at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, he provided clinical leadership to late-stage development programs in diabetes and lipid disorders, was involved in business development and licensing activities, and worked closely with the translational medicine team on early development projects. He drove the initiative of
establishing the Novartis “Metabolism Center of Excellence” in Hyderabad, India.
Later, as a Therapeutic Area Clinical Director at Merck Research Laboratories, Dr. Naik provided scientific and clinical leadership to multiple, global development programs from proof-of-concept through phase 3 registration studies in diabetes and reproductive endocrinology. He was a core member of the Joint Development Committees of the co-development programs involving external partners (Pfizer and Samsung Bioepis). He chaired and ran the scientific advisory committees and provided expertise for several in-licensing opportunities.
Subsequently, Dr. Naik worked at Johnson & Johnson Diabetes Care Companies as the Senior Medical Director of Worldwide Clinical Affairs, with a focus on businesses across three distinct J&J companies providing direct leadership to insulin delivery platform (hybrid closed-loop insulin delivery program and patch insulin delivery system). In addition to providing leadership to regulatory clinical studies for class II and class III devices, he designed and executed real world evidence generation studies, and provided clinical leadership for payer interactions, including value-based contracting, clinical support to digital platform, and franchise medical affairs leadership in the Asia-Pacific region.
While pursuing an industry career, he served as an adjunct associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Naik returned to an academic position in February 2018, as a professor of medicine at SUNY Upstate Medical University; he served as an Assistant Dean and Director for Clinical and Translational Research Programs at SUNY Upstate Medical University, leading external academic collaboration and research partnership initiatives. Subsequently and prior to joining NYU, he was a clinical professor of medicine and Director of Diabetes Clinical Innovation at the University of Washington.
His research areas of interest include autoimmune diabetes, immune interventions in type 1 diabetes, newer therapies in type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and diabetes/technology interaction. He has published in the area of autoimmune diabetes and has authored chapters in international textbooks in diabetes.