Dr. Metcalf recently retired as CSO from Global Blood Therapeutics. GBT currently has a Phase III study underway with GBT440 for sickle cell anemia. Earlier he served as head, drug discovery at Incyte Pharmaceuticals. During his tenure at Incyte, the company was transformed from a genomics information company to one focused on drug discovery, culminating in the discovery of Jakafi, a JAK1/2 kinase inhibitor.
Jakafi was approved for the treatment of myelofibrosis by the FDA in 2011. Prior to Incyte, Metcalf was the chief scientific officer of Kosan Biosciences. Prior to that, he served in a number of executive management positions with SmithKline Beecham over the course of 17 years, most recently as worldwide head of discovery chemistry and platform technologies. Dr. Metcalf is credited with the discovery Sabril, for epilepsy and has numerous patents and publications in the drug discovery arena.