David McGarry – Principal Medicinal Chemist

My role at Amphista is…

My role at Amphista is Principal Medicinal Chemist. This involves managing and delivering on the chemistry strategy for a variety of projects, as well as helping support the strategy across the wider Amphista portfolio. I work closely with colleagues across a variety of disciplines (including chemistry, computational chemistry, DMPK and biology), ensuring projects are progressing as efficiently as possible.

I was drawn to join Amphista because…

I was drawn to join Amphista because protein degraders are an underexplored but rapidly emerging new modality, capable of delivering robust therapies where traditional small molecule inhibitors may fail. I wanted to work at the cutting edge of the field, so joined Amphista, which is developing novel methods of harnessing new E3 ligases to deliver robust protein degradation.

The work we do at Amphista matters because…

The work we do at Amphista matters because by using our technology, we have the ability to target previously undruggable proteins across a variety of disease indications, including in the CNS. Ultimately, this research has the ability to help patients by delivering safe and efficacious medicines for previously untargeted diseases.

If I were to describe Targeted Protein Degradation/what TPD means to me in three words, they would be…

Exciting, surprising, game-changing

The best piece of advice I have ever received is..

The best piece of advice I have ever received is that almost all problems can be solved, either with hard-work, creativity, or luck. Or often, all three.