Dr. Doug E. Frantz
Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Commercialization
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS
Dr. Doug E. Frantz is currently Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Commercialization, as well as Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Washington University in St. Louis. Previously, Dr. Frantz held the Max and Minnie Tomerlin Voelcker Endowed Chair in Chemistry at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and served as Assistant Chair of the Department of Chemistry. Frantz earned a PhD in organic chemistry from Texas A&M University in 1998 and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at ETH Zürich in Switzerland.
Frantz began his professional career in the pharmaceutical industry. He worked in Merck Research Laboratories from 2000-05, helping move early drug discoveries into clinical trials for therapies to treat chronic pain, cancer and more. He also help establish a new research facility for Merck in Wayne, PA aimed at expanding the chemical capabilities in preclinical and clinical supplies for small molecule drug candidates.
Frantz returned to Texas in 2005 to join the biochemistry faculty of The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, where he helped initiate several drug discovery programs including a new class of HIF-2α inhibitors that led to the discovery and development of WELIREGTM (belzutifan) that recently received FDA approval and is currently marketed by Merck for the treatment of various cancers.
He was recruited to join the chemistry department at UTSA in 2009 where he led that department to become a leader in organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry in the state of Texas. During his time at UTSA, he co-founded the Center for Innovative Drug Discovery (CIDD), a joint initiative with the medical school at UT Health San Antonio, which has won over $20 million in funding since it launched in 2012. He also helped raise more than $12 million in philanthropic support for endowed faculty positions and chemistry research facilities.
His research group at WashU will continue to pursue their mutual interests in asymmetric catalysis, physical organic chemistry, and drug discovery in several therapeutic areas including chronic pain, cancer, infectious diseases, and neurodegeneration. Dr. Frantz has received several awards including being elected as a Senior Member to the National Academy of Inventors (2021), the Thieme Journal Award (2017), Lilly Open Innovation Drug Discovery Outstanding Collaborator Award (2014), and the Max and Minnie Tomerlin Young Investigator Award (2010). He has consulted for multiple startup ventures and large pharmaceutical firms and has also served as an expert witness on several legal cases in the fields of drug discovery and development, intellectual property, medical chemistry, and process chemistry.