Altima

pemetrexed

As a graduate student at Princeton University, I had the good fortune to form a mentoring relationship with Professor Ted Taylor. Prof Taylor had a prolific organic/heterocyclic synthesis program at Princeton and consulted extensively with Eli Lilly and Company. Starting in the 1970’s, Prof. Taylor focused his program’s efforts on developing anti-oncolytic compounds, specifically those targeting the folate acid cycle. Prof. Taylor helped me obtain a research position at Lilly, and our friendship continued to develop as he consulted at Lilly, as well as sent many of the compounds made in his lab to Lilly for testing in oncology screens. In the early ‘90’s, one of the Taylor compounds proved to be extraordinarily active. Princeton-Taylor-Lilly signed a licensing agreement, and from 1990-2004, Lilly advanced the compound discovered in the Princeton Taylor labs through the drug development process to create Lilly’s medicine Alimta, indicated to treat malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Over the years, my efforts as an informal alliance manager led Lilly to establish a graduate student research fellowship named for Prof. Taylor. In the, mid-2000’s Princeton decided to leverage the proceeds from Alimta’s commercial license toward building a new chemistry building. Through that period, I partnered with chemistry department leadership to continue to build the Lilly-Princeton relationship. This culminated in the 2012 opening of the “New Frick” building, where we brought dignitaries from Lilly and Princeton together to celebrate an incredible multi-decade collaboration.

Facilitating the alliance between Princeton and Lilly, including supporting the incredible work of all scientists involved, was an incredibly rewarding experience. Basic research translated through a highly collaborative partnership resulted in a first-in-class medicine for a previously untreatable cancer, helping hundreds of thousands patients. The benefits extended back to the chemistry department that discovered the medicine, which now has world-class research faculty, as well as a facility, which will enable many generations of Princeton chemists to continue to push back the boundaries of science.