Donald Kirsch

Research and Development / Drug Discovery

Position in Extended Committee - Research and Development / Drug Discovery Expert

Dr Donald Kirsch has almost 35 years of R&D leadership and management experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He currently runs a biopharma consulting practice in Boston and New York, teaches Drug Discovery and Management at the Harvard University Extension School and courses at MassBio.

Donald previously served as the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at Cambria Pharmaceuticals where he oversaw the development of drugs for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases focusing on ALS. Prior to joining Cambria, Donald was a research manager at Squibb, where he served as a research group leader working on the discovery of natural product therapeutic drugs for anti-infective and cardiovascular applications, and as Director at Genetics Institute and Wyeth, where he lead a genomics research group identifying new drug targets from genomic sequences. Donald also served as a Director at the Wyeth neuroscience department working on the discovery of therapeutics for neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases.

Donald received his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Rutgers College and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in molecular biology. Following a postdoctoral research appointment in the pharmacology department at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, he joined the faculty there as an instructor prior to beginning his industrial career.

Donald is the author of over 50 scientific publications and technical monographs, an inventor on 24 US patents and patent applications, and has served for over 20 years at the NIH as a reviewer of grant applications.