Evotec Scientific Meet-up with Dermot McGinnity

Dermot McGinnity graduated in Biochemistry and completed a PhD on cytochrome c peroxidases at the University of Edinburgh, UK and was a Postdoc at the University of Michigan, US with Prof. Jud Coon researching the catalytic mechanisms of cytochrome P450. For the last 27 years Dermot has been in increasingly senior and global roles in Discovery and Development DMPK in Pharmaceutical R&D. At AstraZeneca Dermot was part of the team that discovered ticagrelor and as Head of DMPK Oncology R&D was accountable for non-clinical DMPK and translational PK-PD across multiple modalities and supported the discovery and/or development of several late stage and marketed drugs including camizestrant, acalabrutinib, olaparib and osimertinib. Dermot is currently Executive Vice President and Head of Discovery DMPK at Evotec. Dermot’s research interests are towards enhancing the predictive capability of human pharmacokinetics and clinical drug-drug interactions and has more than 40 peer-reviewed publications.

Evotec DMPK provides a fully integrated ADME platform, via a wide-ranging set of in vitro assays and comprehensive bioanalytical capability including metabolite identification. Rodent PK capability exists in UK, France and Italy complemented by higher species PK (including dog and NHPs) and drug formulation optimization capability. Co-location of synthesis and globally harmonized Tier 1 and other ADME assays required early in the screening supports rapid DMTA cycles at all integrated R&D sites in UK, France and Italy. For assays further down the screening cascade (e.g. Tier 2+) fast-track access to centralized Cyprotex assays are utilized. Importantly experienced and expert DMPK project representatives connected to subject matter experts, including PK and PKPD translational modelers, collaborate in designing critical experiments and analysis to provide data driven decisions to candidate nomination.