Dr. George Mulligan, Ph.D., has 20 years of biopharma experience including drug discovery, translational research and regulatory areas, as well as patient facing activities such as clinical development, medical affairs and patient advocacy. This experience has focused on cancer but included other challenging or rare diseases of high unmet need.
Prior to joining Bantam, Dr. Mulligan was Chief Scientific Officer at Mitobridge, an Astellas Co. In this role he was responsible for Research & Development, scientific strategy, business development and patient advocacy as well as site integration globally, including strategies to differentiate and expand the mitochondrial platform. Mitobridge was formed in 2013, advanced multiple compounds into clinical development and was ultimately acquired by Astellas Pharma in 2018 to expand their research and clinical focus on diseases with mitochondrial dysfunction.
Prior to joining Mitobridge Inc. in 2015 as Vice President of Translational Medicine, Dr. Mulligan led translational research strategies across the early and late-stage oncology pipeline at Millennium the Takeda Oncology Company. This responsibility included collaboration and strategic planning from discovery to clinical development, regulatory, medical affairs and patient advocacy. Dr. Mulligan’s team was responsible for varied programs that modulate the ubiquitin-proteasome system, including several first-in-class molecules that are now approved or in clinical development. This research extended from model systems to clinical trials, including cell biology, pharmacology, mechanism(s) of action, pharmacodynamics and patient selection. The strategies included program differentiation, drug combinations, targeted development and value-based medicine.
From 2000 to 2015, while at Takeda and earlier within Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Mulligan played an integral role in clinical research and targeted development of the proteasome inhibitors bortezomib (VELCADE) and ixazomib (NINLARO). In this role he also led the clinical pharmacogenomics research to define mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to proteasome inhibition in different cancers. By collaboration across academic centers, pharmaceutical partners and patient advocacy leaders he helped pioneer a broad personalized medicine initiative in multiple myeloma, referred to as CoMMpass (
https://themmrf.org/finding-a-cure/our-work/the-mmrf-commpass-study/ ). Prior to Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Mulligan led personalized medicine strategies at the start-up Millennium Predictive Medicine and also worked at Aventis Pharmaceuticals and the Hoechst-Ariad Genomics Center. Dr. Mulligan received his BS degree in Biology from Fordham University and his Ph.D. in Cellular Biology from SUNY Stony Brook. After thesis research at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York he completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Tyler Jacks at the MIT Center for Cancer Research. Dr. Mulligan is the author of varied patents and peer reviewed publications; his long term focus remains improving the lives of patients with cancer.
