BIOS
Paul Aristoff, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Aristoff is a drug discovery scientist and leader with extensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry at Upjohn, Pharmacia, and Pfizer. Paul has been responsible for leading multi-disciplinary research teams and chemistry departments of up to 160 scientists in a broad variety of therapeutic areas that produced over 35 development candidates, including three drugs that are on the US market. Paul is the inventor or co-inventor on twelve development candidates, including four drugs thatreached the marketplace. He successfully initiated and led multiple collaborations with academia and the biotech industry. Paul possesses deep medicinal chemistry expertise, particularly in the antibacterial, antiviral, and oncology research areas. Paul is also author or co-author on 57 publications and 78 presentations, including 38 invited lectures. He is also inventor or co-inventor on 30 issued US patents, including four marked drugs.
John Booth, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Booth has fourteen years of pharmaceutical research know-how with significant scientific and leadership experience in the Oncology and Inflammation Therapeutic Areas. John has specific expertise in project leadership and the science of kinase inhibition. More...
Alex Bridges, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Bridges has had a 25 year big pharma and biotech career following six years in academics. Prior to joining IDSC, Alex spent five years as the senior director of preclinical sciences at Quatrx Pharmaceuticals. In this role, Alex headed chemical development, managed outsourcing, evaluated in licensing opportunities, and designed pharmacology and PD studies. This came after a 20 year career at Parke-Davis/Pfizer where Alex headed up the preclinical oncology program and metabolic disease medicinal chemistry. In his 20 years at Parke-Davis/Pfizer, Alex was directly responsible for multiple clinical candidates and phase 1 clinical trial starts. Alex has 143 peer-reviewed publications and 32 granted patents.
Mark Creswell
President and CEO
Mark began his career at Warner-Lambert's Ann Arbor, Michigan facility. While working in many therapeutic areas including cardiovascular, antibacterials, oncology, and CNS, Mark held many positions of increasing responsibility. In 1998, Mark accepted the responsibility of building and managing Warner-Lambert's Discovery Chemistry Outsourcing Program. He and his team pioneered the art of managing a successful outsourcing program that brought tremendous value to Warner-Lambert. Following the Pfizer acquisition of Warner-Lambert, Mark was instrumental in forming a centralized global sourcing team. Following the closure of the Pfizer Ann Arbor facility, Mark founded IDSC. More...John Domagala, Ph.D.
Director
After receiving his Ph. D., John joined Warner-Lambert in Ann Arbor in 1977 as a medicinal chemist in the Infectious disease TA. While gaining experience in penicillins, cephalosporins, and monobactams, he led Warner-Lambert into the quinolone field in 1981. John and his group were instrumental in defining the world wide quinolone activity and side effect SARs. He became group leader in 1986, TA leader in 1991, and the Pfizer Global TA head in 2000 leading over 100 scientists and managing over 30 projects at two sites. John also led Pfizer's Antibacterial in licensing efforts evaluating over 100 compounds per year. During his 30 plus year tenure in Infectious diseases, John had over 100 publications and more than 30 patents. John was associated with 31 clinical candidates with 8 entered into advanced human trials, and has had some experience in almost every antibacterial class of drugs. As Executive Director of the TA, John was intimately involved in the development of the Pfizer global TA strategy which included the defining of the medical/market needs, all product profiles, and an integrated market strategy. From various task forces and study groups John became expert in portfolio development and pharmaceutical attrition. John left Pfizer in September of 2007 to be the first of several Pfizer directors to join IDSC. More...
David J. Dooley, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Dooley has over 27 years of research experience and project management in CNS drug discovery. He was Research Fellow in CNS Pharmacology at Pfizer prior to joining IDSC. As a neuropharmacologist, he contributed to the nomination of 12 clinical candidates, 6 being advanced to clinical testing. He has worked on both small molecule and peptide strategies targeting various psychiatric and neurological disorders. He has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals, and presented at more than 70 international scientific meetings. In 1990, he relocated to the Ann Arbor labs of Parke-Davis after being employed by European pharmaceutical firms. Dr. Dooley received his Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Washington in Seattle. More...
Gail M. Farfel, Ph.D.
Director
With 19 years experience in Clinical Development, Regulatory Strategy and Medical Affairs, Dr. Farfel advises companies on asset evaluation, clinical development program planning and regulatory strategy for new chemical entities, new indications, and new formulations. Formerly Vice President of US Neuroscience at Novartis Pharmaceuticals and a member of the PhRMA Clinical Research Subcommittee, her expertise spans many indications in Psychiatry and Neurology including affective disorders, substance abuse, neurodegenerative diseases and pain. Dr. Farfel has a proven track record in US, EU and Japanese regulatory approvals and new product/new indication launches during her career and is the author of over 50 publications and presentations. More...
Shelly Glase, Ph.D.
Director
Shelly Glase has 17 years CNS Medicinal Chemistry experience, covering both psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. While at Pfizer/Parke-Davis she developed expertise in all aspects of preclinical drug discovery, from evaluation and optimization of chemical leads to rational design of clinical candidates. Her experience also includes 6 years of project management, leading a large multi-disciplinary project team that advanced 5 drug candidates to preclinical development. Shelly received her postdoctoral training at the University of Rochester, Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Houston and B.S. in Chemistry from Carnegie-Mellon University. More...
Mark Milad, Pharm.D.
Director
Mark Milad brings 15 years of big pharma and biotech experience to IDSC. Mark is a seasoned expert in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic analysis, clinical pharmacology, and drug development strategy. He brings to bare career experience in pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, PK/PD modeling and simulation, translational medicine, clinical pharmacology, phase I & II study design, drug interactions study design, dose selection, and dose regimen design.
Over 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry has allowed Mark to develop and apply his clinical pharmacology skills. He has applied his expertise in project leadership, pharmacokinetic data analysis, population pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic analysis, modeling and simulation including computer assisted clinical trial design to influence several drug development programs. He has developed approximately ten compounds through Phase 1, four compounds through Phase 2, and one compound through Phase 3. In addition, he has preclinical experience with numerous compounds that were discontinued prior to filling the IND. Furthermore, Mark has evaluated compounds that were being considered for in-licensing.
David Moreland, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Moreland joined IDSC after gaining over 21 years of research experience in a large pharmaceutical environment. With broad expertise in molecular modeling, cheminformatics/QSAR, and structural bioinformatics, he has made key contributions to projects in several therapeutic areas, including CNS, cardiovascular, antiretroviral, and antibacterial. He has applied ligand-based, structure-based, and statistical techniques, helping teams identify numerous early clinical candidates, including one phase II compound. He has worked on GPCR, nuclear hormone receptor, protease, and RNA targets. Dr. Moreland obtained his B.S. in Chemistry at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, then earned his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley in Prof. W. G. Dauben's group, where he studied the synthesis and properties of strained cage molecules before completing his thesis work on the application of conformational analysis and statistics to the understanding of reaction mechanisms. More...
TJ O'Donnell
Director
Dr. O'Donnell has 27 years of experience working with pharmaceutical and other chemical companies. His early work in computer graphics led to one of the first molecular modeling and graphics systems at a major pharmaceutical company. He has applied computational chemistry methods to implement algorithms for chemical modeling and to produce web-based applications for use by research chemists. He is also an expert in the design and use of relational databases in chemistry. More...
Richard Pariza, Ph.D.
Director
Richard Pariza received his Ph.D. degree in Organic Chemistry from Purdue University. He has more than 30 years of leadership on major projects in the pharmaceutical industry. His experience includes Discovery and Development research, management or executive positions with Abbott Laboratories, Protarga, Natural Pharmaceuticals, OncQuest, and Cedarburg Hauser Pharmaceuticals. He has broad knowledge of API suppliers, auditing for safety and cGMP compliance and manufacturing competence. His specialty is designing and improving the processes to make new drugs. He is a former founding editor and now member of the Editorial Board of Organic Process Research & Development, a peer-reviewed Journal from the American Chemical Society, which publishes state-of-the-art manufacturing research from all major pharmaceutical companies. He also has an appointment as a Visiting Research Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. More...
Robert (Bob) Sigler, DVM, Ph.D., Dipl., ACVP
Director
Dr. Sigler has more than 21 years experience as a drug development pathologist and study director at Parke-Davis, Pfizer and Esperion Therapeutics, a small cardiovascular company which was acquired by Pfizer. He received his DVM from Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine (East Lansing), his ACVP board-certification while in residency at the University Of Tennessee College Of Veterinary Medicine (Knoxville) in 1983, and his Ph.D. in Pathology from the University of Maryland Medical School (Baltimore) in 1987. As listed above, he has experience in large pharma as well as start-ups and small companies. Bob has served as a veterinary pathologist, designing the pathology endpoints and performing pathologic evaluation in numerous investigational, discovery and development projects for drug candidates and has co-authored several IND applications as well as safety assessments and FDA briefing documents. Drug indications have varied from anticonvulsant, antipsychotic, antiinfective, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and the treatment of atherosclerosis. Bob did extensive toxicology work supporting the safety package for Lipitor and Neurontin, marketed by Parke-Davis and Pfizer. From 2000 until 2007, he was Director of Pathology (Esperion Therapeutics, Inc, a start-up company acquired by Pfizer in February, 2004), managed a vivarium, chaired the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), and designed new facilities for histology and necropsy laboratories at the Pfizer Plymouth Township Facility (Esperion Therapeutics), and worked as a study director and study pathologist.
Bob Sliskovic, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Bob Sliskovic has 25 years of research and management experience in the fields of cardiovascular, inflammation, CNS and dermatology drug discovery. He has developed a significant knowledge of all disciplines relevant to the drug discovery process as well as a broad expertise in multiple therapeutic areas. Prior to joining IDSC, Dr Sliskovic was Senior Director of both CNS and Inflammation Chemistry at Pfizer's Ann Arbor Laboratories. During his tenure at Parke-Davis/Pfizer, his knowledge and experience has helped identify 33 clinical candidates, with 12 compounds having progressed to clinical trials, including Lipitor® Upon completing his Ph.D. in 1982, he moved to the US and joined Lederle Laboratories, part of the American Cynanamid Company, in Pearl River, New York where he worked on the discovery of novel anti-cancer agents. Dr Sliskovic received his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Keele in the UK. More...
Ken Tack, MD
Director
Kenneth Tack earned his undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. After completing his training in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the University of Minnesota, he took a position with the Michigan State College of Human Medicine. He then moved to the pharmaceutical industry, initially with Johnson & Johnson, and then with Upjohn, and Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert (acquired by Pfizer). He has had extensive clinical trial experience with quinolones, cephalosporins, and glycopeptides, and has worked with regulatory agencies in Europe, Asia, and North America. He has presented at the FDA Anti-Infective Advisory Committee, at IDSA, at the annual Superbugs and Superdrugsmeeting, and has over 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Since March 2008, he has been an independent consultant working with multiple companies developing antibacterial compounds for a variety of indications.
Charlie Taylor, Ph.D
Director
Dr. Taylor brings to IDSC 27 years of big pharma expertise in CNS Biology. During his career at Parke-Davis and Pfizer, Charlie lead discovery programs in the areas of neurological diseases, epilepsy, neuropathic pain, stroke, anxiety, sleep disorders, bipolar disorders, and schizophrenia. Charlies preclinical work on pregabalin was key to the development of Lyrica®. Charlie has over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals and books with 59 as first or senior author. Charlie also has over 30 invited seminars and symposia. More...
Jim Zeller, Ph.D
Director
Dr. Zeller brings to IDSC 25 years of big pharma chemical development, CMC, and manufacturing expertise. Jim most recently headed process development and manufacturing for Cedarburg Pharmaceuticals. Prior to this Jim was Senior Director of chemical R & D for Pfizer's Holland, MI pilot plant. Jim led a department of 100 organic chemists, chemical engineers, analytical chemists, and pilot plant personnel. More...