Pierre Morissette

Senior Principal Scientist, Discovery Program Leader and Compound Leader @ Merck

About

I am a safety pharmacologist and cardiovascular scientist working to evaluate the preclinical safety of new drug candidates. In my current role I serve as a safety pharmacologist and project representative responsible for providing cardiovascular safety pharmacology guidance for the evaluation and derisking of drug candidates belonging to several therapeutic areas. In this role, I have contributed to several IND filings. I have also broad industry knowledge and extensive experience with pharmacology model development, preclinical cardiovascular safety assessment, preclinical toxicology, safety pharmacology and drug development. I have been providing scientific leadership to the safety pharmacology group and also to the broader drug development teams. I have also mentored and coached many junior scientists within the Safety Pharmacology field. I have supervised up to 6 reports in studies designed to provide a mechanistic understanding of cardiovascular, respiratory and/or neurological findings in toxicology studies. In this role, I have served as a department wide resource for training, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological findings. I have supported multiple discovery programs from several therapeutic areas to differentiate new chemical and biological entities. Finally, I have coordinated logistical support for GLP and non-GLP studies for multiple discovery and development stage programs in a global environment using in-house and contract laboratory resources. In this role, I have ensured that appropriate resources and personnel have been available to execute lead op and preclinical development studies across the portfolio within the required timelines.

Country

United States

City

Collegeville

Industry

Pharmaceuticals

Skill

Investigator Brochures, Non-clinical, Toxicokinetics, Regulatory Agency communications , Cardiovascular Safety Pharmacology, Nonclinical Safety Leader, Discovery and Development Team Representative, Safety Pharmacology, Electrophysiology, Cardiovascular research, Experimental design and reports, Anesthetized and Telemetered Safety Pharmacology Models, Cardiovascular Disease, Ion Channels, In Vitro, Toxicology, Pharmacokinetics, Drug Development, Drug Discovery, Pharmacology

Experience

Senior Principal Scientist, Discovery Program Leader and Compound Leader

Merck

2019-12 - Present · 6 yrs 10 mos

West Point, PA

Nonclinical safety Discovery Program Leader supporting multiple programs from various therapeutic areas (Neuroscience, infectious disease, oncology and immunology). Responsible for assessing the overall risk associated with a target of interest during target validation and efficiently executing the research operating plan in the lead optimization (LO) phase and early development. Approval of various small molecules and peptides in multiple therapeutic areas as candidates ready for early development. Nonclinical lead on drug development teams supporting small molecules, peptides and monoclonal antibodies making strategic decisions that successfully took programs from discovery to phase-2 (preclinical risk assessment, IND submission and post IND support) Lead on multidisciplinary teams for external due diligence teams to in-license drugs. Expertise leading multiple cross-functional teams to streamline processes and investigate and resolve specific toxicities.

Principal Scientist

Merck

2013-6 - 2019-12 · 6 yrs 7 mos

West Point, PA

- Responsible for the planning and reporting of in vivo cardiovascular, respiratory and neurobehavioral assays to evaluate potential unanticipated pharmacodynamic effects of test articles prior to introduction in man. - Safety assessment subject matter expert on neuroscience discovery teams. - Contributed to several IND filings for all Merck’s therapeutic areas. - Contributed to the design of Merck’s cardiovascular derisking stategy - Developed several in vivo assays for the early cardiovascular derisking of small molecules and/or biologics - Evaluated the translation of pre-clinical in vitro and in vivo data to improve the prediction of arrhythmic and overall cardiovascular risk of compounds/programs in early development. - Contributed to the safety pharmacology outsourcing strategy for Merck - Compound Leader for Zocor and Mevacor; contributed to several NDA updates and answers to regulatory questions. Contributed to PSURs. - Study director on GLP and non-GLP studies