Elizabeth Vadas

Dr. Vadas received her Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from McGill University in Montreal and her undergraduate degree in colloid and surface chemistry in Budapest, Hungary. Following postdoctoral training in the Department of Biochemistry at McGill, Dr. Vadas joined Merck Frosst, the Canadian subsidiary of Merck & Co. in 1980, where she spent 22 years in the department of Pharmaceutical R&D.

As Executive Director in Pharmaceutical R&D, she was involved in the early characterization and formulation development of many new chemical entities discovered at the Merck Frosst Centre for Therapeutic Research. Leadership accomplishments include rapid characterization and selection of viable development candidates, which she established through close collaboration with the discovery groups in basic research. Her product development efforts, which lead to worldwide regulatory approval of several products, include SINGULAIR®, Merck’s new asthma therapy, and VIOXX® and ARCOXIA™, two Cox-2 inhibitors for the treatment of pain, osteoarthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis.