Dennis Dean

Dennis Dean has worked in large pharma and biotech for over 20 years, leading groups across drug discovery and development. Dennis has focused on finding new and better ways to link and optimize progression through drug discovery to preclinical and early clinical development. Prior to joining IFM, he served as Senior Vice President, Exploratory Development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals with oversight for translational groups including DMPK, preclinical safety assessment, clinical pharmacology and biomarkers, and modeling & simulation. While at Vertex he helped advance numerous programs from discovery into clinical development in disease areas including cancer, inflammation, anti-virals, pain, and cystic fibrosis. He also played an important role in filing approved NDAs for Vertex’s first marketed product, Telaprevir for HCV, and later for transformational drugs Kalydeco and Orkambi for cystic fibrosis. Prior to joining Vertex, Dennis was Executive Director of DMPK at Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, NJ with oversight for discovery and development DMPK across 4 Merck research sites.

Dennis obtained his PhD in medicinal chemistry from SUNY / Buffalo and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in synthetic organic chemistry at Emory University. He has co-authored over 90 publications and has served in leadership roles in various scientific societies and industry consortia.