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Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery, Empress Therapeutics

Kevin has over 20 years of experience in drug discovery, and was co-inventor of several clinical and developmental candidates, including safimaltib and lorpucitinib during his tenure at J&J/Janssen. He is interested in streamlining drug discovery by using AI to identify drug-like small molecules from genetic data. Under his leadership, Empress has discovered 15 promising drug leads in 24 months. Kevin also has over 30 patents and 20 publications in diverse therapeutic areas. 

“My uncle gave me a microscope when I was 12, and the rest is history. I became a science fair kid and never looked back. Years later, it has been a real privilege to give back as a science fair organizer and to give talks in classrooms on drug discovery. Just sharing a bit of the excitement of discovery and the scientific method goes a long way. Everyone, from kindergarten up, can understand how important this work is.”