Who I Am

I love science. I love research. That’s what I’ve done my entire career and I don’t think I would do anything else. I think of myself as a drug hunter – I’ve discovered several drug candidates which were evaluated in clinical trials.  I led the medicinal chemistry effort culminating in the discovery of ivosidenib, which is approved to treat patients with several types of cancers harboring an IDH1 mutation.

I trained as a synthetic chemist in graduate school and from there I chose the path of research in the biopharmaceutical industry.  I’ve always been close to science and contributed to advancing it. I still do so today as a consultant.  From what I consider my formative years in large pharma, my journey then took me to making the jump to biotech and then onto contributing to launch startups.  My roles have spanned from that of an individual contributor, to leading teams and then to building and leading drug discovery organizations.  It is the totality of this experience that I bring to my consulting practice and to your projects. 

Over the years, through successes and failures, my approach and philosophy toward drug discovery have evolved and are the cumulative result of my contributions to multiple biological targets across therapeutic indications. My notion of teams has become more refined over time.  Whether it be a group of cutting-edge scientists working within a company or dispersed teams of skilled scientists working around the world in CROs or highly experienced drug discovery scientists providing leadership, each individual is critical to the success of a drug discovery program.

I’m only one part of this equation and I take pride in collaborating with many talented individuals and it’s only through collaborating as a true team that new medicines can be discovered.

If you’re interested in getting more details about my background, checkout my LinkedIn page.