Christopher B. (Chris) Cooper joined the TB Alliance in January 2009, as Director of Chemistry. Chris received his BS (magna cum laude) in Chemistry from Clemson University in 1980, and his MS in Organic Chemistry at Stanford University with Professor Carl Djerassi in 1982. Following a two-year industry sabbatical at CIBA-Geigy Pharmaceuticals, he returned to Stanford in 1984 to earn his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry with Professor Paul A. Wender. From 1988 through 1998, Dr. Cooper was engaged in medicinal chemistry research at Pfizer, Inc., in both their Groton, Connecticut, and Sandwich, England, laboratories. His areas of investigation included veterinary and human drug discovery programs (infectious disease, inflammation, immunology, oncology, and neuroscience), as well as applications of automated synthesis technologies for both lead generation and lead optimization purposes.
Dr Cooper joined Bristol-Myers Squibb, Inc., in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1998 to launch the Lead Synthesis Group directing the design, development, and synthesis of novel, drug-like medicinal chemistry arrays. His research team at BMS was directly responsible for the rapid pharmacological assessment of exploratory biological targets of interest, and the advancement of early- and full-phase discovery programs through hit-to-lead, lead optimization, and pre-development candidate selection medicinal chemistry approaches.
As Senior Director of Chemistry at the TB Alliance, Chris is responsible for all lead identification, lead optimization, preclinical, and clinical candidate chemistry efforts including medicinal chemistry, process chemistry, and cGMP drug substance manufacturing activities across the Alliance’s research and development portfolio. He currently oversees ~60 medicinal chemistry, analytical chemistry, process chemistry, and GMP manufacture FTE’s at 15 combined universities, biopharma, contract research organizations (CRO’s), and contract manufacturing organizations (CMO’s) for the advancement of ~25 discovery/preclinical/clinical programs. Dr. Cooper is the author of over 70 publications and is the inventor on twenty approved US and international (WO) patents.