Mark Murcko

Biography

Mark Murcko has directly contributed to 5 marketed drugs and several others currently in mid to late-stage clinical trials. Dr. Murcko is currently the Principal at Disruptive Biomedical, LLC, an independent consultant and is a Professor of Practice at MIT and SVP, Strategy for Schrödinger, a leading software provider for drug discovery and materials science applications. Dr. Murcko also currently serves on numerous scientific advisory boards and corporate boards of directors for a diverse range of companies in the biomedical space. Until November 2011 Dr. Murcko was Chief Technology Officer and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. In this role, he was responsible for the identification, validation, and incorporation of disruptive technologies across global R&D. Dr. Murcko is a co-inventor of the HCV protease inhibitor Incivek™ (telaprevir), as well as Agenerase™ (amprenavir) and Lexiva™ (fosamprenavir), Vertex’s two marketed drugs for HIV. In addition, he guided the early efforts of the Vertex’s cystic fibrosis program that produced the marketed drug Kalydeco™ (ivacaftor) and several other CF compounds currently in late-stage development. Dr. Murcko is also a co-inventor of 8 other clinical candidates in the areas of cancer, inflammation/immunology, and infectious disease and was responsible for starting many of Vertex’s programs in these and other disease areas, notably Vertex’s influenza drug VX-787 currently in phase II. Prior to Vertex, Dr. Murcko worked at Merck Sharpe & Dohme, where he helped discover clinical candidates against infection and cardiovascular and ocular diseases, including inhibitors of the enzyme carbonic anhydrase for the treatment of glaucoma. One of Merck’s development candidates in this area, Trusopt™ (dorzolamide), became the first marketed drug in pharmaceutical history to result from a structure-based drug design program. Dr. Murcko has served on the editorial boards of many scientific publications, was the co-organizer of the 2008 ACS National Medicinal Chemistry Symposium, and served as the Chair of the 2013 Gordon Research Conference in Medicinal Chemistry. He is a co-inventor on more than 50 issued and pending patents, has co-authored more than 85 scientific articles, and has delivered more than 180 invited lectures. He received his Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry from Yale University.

Research Interest

Medicinal Chemistry, Organic Chemistry