Emma Parmee Janssen Pharmaceuticals, UK
As Global Head of Therapeutics Discovery within Janssen Research & Development, Emma Parmee is currently responsible for execution of the discovery portfolio and delivery of development candidates across all therapeutic modalities including small molecules, biologics, peptides, and RNA, gene, and cell therapies. Emma joined Janssen in November 2020 following a 28-year career at Merck Research Labs (MRL), most recently serving as Head of Discovery Chemistry. She began at MRL in the cardiometabolic area where she was privileged to work on the DPP-4 inhibitor project and contribute to the discovery of JANUVIA™ (sitagliptin) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. Emma also served as a Discovery Chemistry Site Lead, responsible for chemistry efforts in Neuroscience, HIV, and Bone. During this time the small molecule CGRP antagonists, UBRELVY™ (ubrogepant) and QULIPTA™ (atogepant), were delivered from the group. Emma obtained her D. Phil. Degree in 1990 at the University of Oxford, studying the total synthesis of milbemycin natural products and then completed a NATO postdoctoral fellowship at MIT under Professor Satoru Masamune. Emma was awarded the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award from the R&D Council of NJ in 2007 and the SCI Gordon E. Moore Medal for Innovation in 2009, both for her contributions toward the discovery of JANUVIA™. She is also a member of the Merck team awarded the 2007 Prix Galien USA for the discovery of JANUVIA™. Emma was the recipient of the 2018 ACS Medicinal Chemistry Division Award and was inducted into the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame in 2018. In 2022, Emma received an Arthur C. Cope Scholar award from the American Chemical Society (ACS). Her work has led to more than 40 issued US patents and more than 50 publications in peer-reviewed journals.
Professor David Procter University of Manchester, UK
David John Procter was born in Leyland in Lancashire, England. He obtained his BSc in Chemistry from the University of Leeds in 1992 and his PhD in 1995 working with Professor C. M. Rayner. He then spent two years as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Professor Robert Holton at Florida State University in Tallahassee, USA working on the synthesis of analogues of the anticancer agent Taxol. In late 1997 he took up a Lectureship at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in February 2004. In September 2004, he moved to a Readership at the University of Manchester. David was promoted to Professor in October 2008, has served as Head of Organic Chemistry, and is currently Head of Department. In addition to the 2020 RSC Charles Rees Award, David has received an EPSRC Established Career Fellowship (2015-2020), the 2014 Liebig Lectureship from the German Chemical Society, the 2014 Bader Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry, and a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (2013). David’s interests include radical chemistry, organosulfur chemistry, catalysis, total synthesis, and photochemistry/photocatalysis.
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