Kirk Ways

Kirk Ways, M.D., Ph.D. has served as a director of the Spruce Biosciences board since June 2021. Dr. Ways is an experienced endocrinologist who brings more than 30 years of extensive pharmaceutical drug discovery and development experience to Spruce’s board of directors. Until January 2021, Dr. Ways served as Chief Medical Officer of Nuvelution Pharma. Prior to joining Nuvelution, Dr. Ways headed several drug development units at Johnson & Johnson’s Pharmaceutical Research and Development group, with focus on metabolic disease, women’s health, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease and internal medicine. Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, Dr. Ways served in leadership capacities at BioStratum Incorporated as Vice President and Chief Development Officer, Aventis as Senior Global Medical Leader and Project Team Leader and Lilly Research Laboratories as a Research Fellow with responsibilities for the preclinical and clinical development for agents treating the chronic complications of diabetes. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Ways served as Director of the Diabetes Center, Vice Chairman for the Department of Internal Medicine, Endocrinology Section Head and Professor of Medicine at East Carolina School of Medicine. An accomplished researcher, Dr. Ways has authored more than one hundred publications in the fields of diabetes and cancer.