Marie O’Farrell, PhD

Bio:

Dr. O’Farrell has led Sagimet’s R&D team as senior vice president of research and development since 2019 and previously served as Sagimet’s senior director of translational sciences from 2013 to 2016. Dr. O’Farrell started her career in drug development in 1998 at Systemix (Novartis) working on stem cell based gene therapy. Since then she has taken positions of increasing responsibility at several companies, primarily in the areas of metabolic disease and oncology. Dr. O’Farrell has a successful track record using innovative translational and biomarker strategies to guide clinical development. At Sugen, she led the clinical oncology biomarker team for the kinase inhibitor sunitinib (SUTENT™). At Phenomix, she led the nonclinical and clinical pharmacology teams for the DPP4 inhibitor dutogliptin to late Phase 3 trials in Type 2 diabetes and was a member of joint drug development teams with Plexxikon, Forest and Chiesi. Dr. O’Farrell has also led drug development programs at Pathway Therapeutics and Revitope.
Dr. O’Farrell has authored or co-authored over 35 peer-reviewed research articles. She holds an Honors B.Sc. degree from University College Cork (Ireland), a PhD in biochemistry from University of Manchester (England) and conducted postdoctoral research at the DNAX Research Institute in Palo Alto.