Chris A. Buhr

Dr. Chris Buhr has more than 20 years of direct experience in the discovery and development of small molecule therapeutics in Oncology and Inflammation. His work has resulted in 40 patents and applications. He has importantly contributed to 6 Investigational New Drug (IND) applications. As a Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Exilixis Dr. Buhr’s most significant achievement to date was leading the medicinal chemistry program for the discovery and development of XL765. His area of expertise is the syntheses and medicinal chemistry of small molecules for the discovery and lead optimization of new chemical entities for the purpose of making new human therapeutics. He has deep knowledge of structure-activity relationships, physicochemical properties of compounds, cellular permeation and cellular biology, structural biology, absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) properties, pharmacology, toxicity, and other areas. Dr. Buhr has extensive experience in the nuclear hormone receptor area including LXR and FXR with a very successful track record of leading nuclear receptor lead optimization programs into human clinical trials.

Dr. Buhr obtained a PhD in Chemistry from the University of California Los Angeles and did postdoctoral studies at the University of Pittsburgh.