Dr. White is a consultant to the biotech industry. After a post-doctoral fellowship on microbial biochemistry at Oxford, he began a career in infectious disease drug discovery in 1969. The first 28 years were spent in the pharmaceutical industry in positions of increasing responsibility at Lepetit, Glaxo, Lederle, and finally at Bristol Myers Squib. At BMS he was Vice President in charge of Infectious Disease Drug Discovery for 12 years, and was involved with the Discovery/Development of the cephalosporins Cefepime and Cefprozil, and the AIDS drugs Didanosine and Zerit. In 1997 he moved to Biotech taking a position at Versicor in California where he became Chief Scientific Officer. In the ensuing 8 years he played an important role in licensing in and development of Dalbavancin and Anidulafungin, taking Versicor public, merging with Biosearch Italia to create Vicuron, and ultimately achieving a market capital of 1.9 billion dollars when it was sold to Pfizer in 2005. His research interests are on the mechanism of action of and resistance to antimicrobial drugs, and the special role that natural products have played in treating infectious diseases. He was educated in England where he received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Manchester, and a Ph.D. in Microbial Biochemistry from the University of Oxford. |