Wade Lange is Purdue Research Foundation's new vice-president and chief entrepreneurial officer, having previously served as Purdue Foundry's entrepreneur-in-residence.
Wade Lange (pictured) has been appointed vice-president and chief entrepreneurial officer of Purdue Research Foundation (PRF), the tech transfer affiliate of Purdue University.
Lange is expected to help drive Purdue’s “ideas-to-impact” innovation strategy, seeking to boost resources including its Purdue Foundry incubator, where he was an entrepreneur-in-residence from 2016 until September 2019.
He has pledged to exercise an “outsider’s approach” to the role, working closely alongside both Purdue University and PRF’s Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC), in addition to the Purdue Research Park incubator complex.
Lange will also support the completion of a new 40-acre innovation district, Discovery Park, slated to host Purdue Foundry, Purdue Ventures and OTC as well as a new department for industry collaborations.
Lange joins Purdue University after 14 months as chief operating officer of pharmaceutical business Magnolia Therapeutics.
He also owns advisory services firm Lange Advisors, which provides business development consulting to early-stage biopharmaceutical and healthcare businesses.
Lange had previously led Indiana University-founded pulmonary autoimmune disease treatment developer ImmuneWorks, spending more than a decade there as president and CEO from 2007 until 2017.
He was also president and CEO of trade association Indiana Health Industry Forum from 2000 until 2005, after a year as general manager for consumer healthcare research at drug manufacturing services provider West Pharmaceutical Services from 1999 until 2000.
Lange earned his bachelor’s degree at Purdue’s College of Pharmacy, later completing a master’s in industrial administration at the Purdue Krannert School of Management.
