Malcolm Maccoss

Biography

Dr. MacCoss led a medicinal chemistry group that synthesized the first oral Substance P antagonist, Emend™ (aprepitant), an anti-emetic product approved by the FDA in 2003 for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV), for which he was awarded the Thomas Edison Award in 2004, along with the other inventors. In addition, his group prepared the novel IV prodrug of Emend (Ivemend™, fosaprepitant), which was approved by the FDA in January 2008. In 2007, Dr. MacCoss was awarded a second Thomas Edison Award, for his contributions to the inventorship of Januvia™ (sitagliptin phosphate), the first approved DPP-IV inhibitor for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Januvia™ was approved in 2006 and a fixed dose combination of Januvia™ and metformin (Janumet™) was approved in 2007. In March 2008, Dr. MacCoss was awarded the NJ American Chemical Society Award for Creativity in Molecular Design and Synthesis; he was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) in 2008, and was inducted into the American Chemical Society Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame in 2009. In 2010, Dr. MacCoss was the recipient of the American Chemical Society Division of Medicinal Chemistry Award.Dr. MacCoss left big pharma in 2010 and founded Bohicket Pharma Consulting LLC where he now serves as a consultant in drug discovery for the pharmaceutical industry. He serves on the Board of Directors of Idera Pharmaceuticals (and is Chairman of their Compensation Committee) and on the SAB of ShangPharma Corporation; he consults regularly for UCB SA (Consultant Senior Fellow), ShangPharma (ChemPartner), and Gilead Sciences, Inc., where he now also serves on their SAB. In the academic arena, he was recently appointed Visiting Professor of Chemistry for Medicine at the University of Oxford and he also serves on the Advisory Council for the Executive Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University, NJ.During this time he also held an Adjunct Associate Professorship in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Illinois Medical Center, Chicago. Dr. MacCoss began his pharma career at Merck as a Research Fellow in 1982, becoming Vice President, Basic Chemistry-Rahway in 1999. In 2003, he became the Vice President of Basic Chemistry and Drug Discovery Sciences, and the Deputy Site-Head of the Rahway Site; he was also Chairman of the Merck World-Wide Chemistry Council.During his time as Head of the Merck Rahway Chemistry Department, the Department produced approximately 100 preclinical drug candidates. In 2008 Dr. MacCoss joined the Schering-Plough Research Institute as Group Vice President for Chemical Research and in addition, he initiated and chaired the Schering-Plough Global Chemistry Council.He obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Birmingham in the U.K. in 1971, and then carried out a post-doctoral fellowship and a research associateship at the University of Alberta in Canada from 1972-1976. In 1976, he took up an appointment at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois in the Division of Biology and Medicine. While at Argonne, he won the University of Chicago Medal for Distinguished Performance at Argonne National Laboratory (awarded to scientists under 40) for his work on novel Phospholipid-nucleoside conjugates as prodrugs for anticancer agents.

Research Interest

Medicinal chemistry