Entrepreneurial Drug Hunter: A Trek for Breakthrough Medicines at the Academic–Industrial Interface

More than 35 years ago, a young graduate student at the University of Arizona invented a molecule that ultimately became a drug approved to treat a rare but debilitating disease affecting skin pigmentation. Today, Tomi K. Sawyer, PhD, is a “drug hunter” leading a team of more than 100 scientists in the Peptide Drug Hunter Network at Merck Research Laboratories in Boston.

On Thursday, April 21, 4-5 p.m., Dr. Sawyer will share inspiring lessons learned from his career as a versatile and accomplished medicinal chemist. The free presentation, “Entrepreneurial Drug Hunter: A Trek for Breakthrough Medicines at the Academic-Industrial Interface,” is part of the University of Arizona Health Sciences’ Mindshare Series of talks and will be held in Drachman Hall, Room B111, 1295 N. Martin Ave., on the UAHS campus. A reception follows.

Dr. Sawyer’s journey has taken him from a graduate program at the UA through research and development roles in leading biotechnology companies. He earned his doctorate in the UA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 1981. While a graduate student, Tomi, with his mentor Victor Hruby, PhD (now Regents’ Professor Emeritus), invented a molecule that ultimately became a drug (Scenesse®) approved to treat erythropoietic protoporphyria, a rare but debilitating disease affecting skin pigmentation, and related diseases. Later in his career, at Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Sawyer led a team that developed Iclusig®, a drug to treat the most difficult cases of chronic myelogenous leukemia, a rare cancer that affects more than 100,000 patients worldwide every year, according to the World Health Organizaton.

Dr. Sawyer currently is Distinguished Scientist, Peptide Drug Discovery and Innovative Technologies, at Merck. During his productive 33-plus-year career in science and industry, he is credited with more than 500 scientific publications, patents and presentations, as well as being a mentor of countless young scientists.

A video and slides from Dr. Sawyer's talk available via request from matt.peters@email.arizona.edu