Mark Murcko

Mark Murcko has directly contributed to nine marketed drugs.  He is a co-founder and was the founding CSO at Relay Therapeutics and was the founding CSO at Dewpoint Therapeutics.  He is currently a board member at Dewpoint, Relay, Octant, and Biohybrid Solutions and has helped ideate, launch, run, build, or advise more than a dozen other biotechs.  In addition, Mark is a senior lecturer in the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT.  Mark was a founding scientist at Vertex Pharmaceuticals where he stayed for more than 20 years, advancing to chief technology officer and chair of the scientific advisory board; his responsibilities included launching new therapeutic projects as well as the identification, validation and implementation of disruptive technologies across R&D.  Mark 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 the treatment of HIV.  In addition, he guided and championed the early efforts of Vertex’s cystic fibrosis program that has produced four transformational drugs, Kalydeco (ivacaftor), Orkambi (lumacaftor / ivacaftor), Symdeco (tezacaftor / ivacaftor), and Trikafta (elexacaftor / tezzacaftor / ivacaftor).  

Prior to Vertex, Mark worked at Merck Sharpe & Dohme, where he helped discover multiple clinical candidates, including inhibitors of the enzyme carbonic anhydrase for the treatment of glaucoma. One of Merck’s development candidates in this area, dorzolamide, was commercialized in two products, Trusopt and Cosopt. Trusopt was the first marketed drug in pharmaceutical history to result from a structure-based drug design program.