Former Quintiles Executive Joins RTI as Chief Medical Officer

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — Claude Hughes, a former executive with Quintiles Transnational, is joining RTI International as its chief medical officer.

Hughes, an M.D., also will serve as vice president of RTI’s Partnership for Genomics and Molecular Epidemiology project. The program is focused on the links between cell activity, genetic coding and disease. The partnership was formed in 2001.

As chief medical officer, he will provide perspective and advice on medical and public health policy projects and related issues, according to RTI.

"His background and experience make him ideally suited to facilitate collaboration among our many internal and external research partners,” said Wayne Holden, RTI’s executive vice president, Social and Statistical Sciences.

At Quintiles, Hughes served as executive director of medical and scientific services. He also was the strategic medical and scientific director for a drug development partnership between Quintiles and Solvay Pharmaceuticals.

A graduate of the Duke University medical school, Hughes is an adjunct professor at Wake Forest, East Carolina and Duke. He also has received six patents and co-authored three books. His areas of expertise include obstetrics, gynecology, reproductive endocrinology and infertility. He earned an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from East Carolina.