Pascal Druzgala, Ph.D.

Dr. Druzgala is our co-founder and has served as senior vice president and chief scientific officer since June 2008, and prior to that as vice president and chief scientific officer since our inception. Dr. Druzgala is responsible for all research related activities of our company. Prior to the founding of ARYx, Dr. Druzgala also co-founded Advanced Therapies, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, in October 1994. Earlier in his career, Dr. Druzgala served as group leader at Xenon Vision, where the retrometabolic drug design concept was applied to four drugs for ocular delivery. One of these drugs, loteprednol etabonate (Alrex® or Lotemax®), is now marketed by Bausch & Lomb, Inc., an eye care company. Dr. Druzgala was a Ph.D. chemist at Pharmatec working on brain-delivery systems for antivirals and estrogens. Dr. Druzgala received a Pharm.D degree from the University of Montpellier, France, and then earned his diplôme d’études approfondies degree at the European Institute of Industrial Pharmaceutical Sciences in Montpellier, France. Dr. Druzgala later graduated from the University of Florida with a doctorate in medicinal chemistry. He completed his post doctorate work at the Center for Drug Design and Discovery at the University of Florida where he first experimented with various drug discovery programs utilizing retrometabolic techniques.