Mark Namchuk PhD is a professor of the practice of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology and the executive director of therapeutics translation at Harvard Medical School. In this later role, Namchuk works with HMS scientists to identify and harness basic insights and move them towards clinical therapies, while training the next generation of therapeutics investigators. He has overall responsibility for the HMS therapeutics initiative which includes an on-campus Biotech incubator (the Blavatnik LifeLab Longwood), a scientific core dedicated to supporting therapeutics discovery in faculty labs at HMS and affiliated institutions and educational programs in therapeutics at the graduate and post-doctoral level. His current research interests focus on drug discovery, in particular antivirals for the treatment of COVID-19.
Namchuk joined HMS in 2020 after a 24-year research and development career in the biotech industry, in the arenas of drug discovery, translational science and pharmaceutical development. In 2015, he joined Alkermes as senior vice president of research and nonclinical and pharmaceutical development. Previously, Namchuk held a number of senior research positions over a 17 year career at Vertex including senior vice president of Research.
Over more than two decades he has directed drug discovery efforts in numerous therapeutic areas, including infectious disease, oncology, neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders, immune-mediated inflammatory disease, inflammatory bowel disease and orphan diseases, including cystic fibrosis. These responsibilities encompassed scientific oversight of the various disciplines in discovery science, DMPK, preclinical and clinical biomarker development, nonclinical safety and pharmaceutical development. Namchuk obtained a BSc in Chemistry for the University of Alberta, a PhD in Bio-organic chemistry from University of British Columbia and was an HFSP post doctoral fellow at UCSF.