The 2018 IUPAC-Richter Prize in Medicinal Chemistry has been awarded to Peter D.J. Grootenhuis. .

Peter D.J. Grootenhuis received this award in recognition of his outstanding creative contributions to the invention, discovery, and development of the medicine which transformed the treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF). Peter Grootenhuis led the team that not only brought this revolutionary drug to the clinic but also has continued to work in the CF field to extend his work with new drugs to treat CF.

The IUPAC-Richter Prize, comprising a plaque and a check for USD 10,000, will be presented on May 1, 2018 at the 36th National Medicinal Chemistry Symposium in Nashville, TN, USA. The plaque will be signed by Professor Qi-Feng Zhou, President of IUPAC, Gábor Orbán, Chief Executive Officer of Gedeon Richter Plc., and Professor János Fischer, Chair of the IUPAC-Richter Prize selection committee. Peter D.J. Grootenhuis will present a lecture at this Symposium and also at the XXVth EFMC International Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry in Ljubljana, Slovenia (September 2-6, 2018).

Peter D.J. Grootenhuis received MSc and PhD degrees in chemistry at the Universities of Utrecht and Twente in the Netherlands. Subsequently, he performed post-doctoral studies in computational chemistry at UC San Francisco, followed by a short sabbatical at Harvard University. He is Senior Director Chemistry at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated in San Diego. Prior to joining Vertex™ in 2002, he worked at CombiChem-DuPont and Organon. At Vertex, Grootenhuis has been research project leader in the areas of cystic fibrosis and sodium channel blockers for pain. He is co-inventor of two FDA approved drugs to treat CF (ivacaftor, lumacaftor).

 

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