Sander G. Mills, Ph.D.
After obtaining his Batchelors degree from Drew University, Sandy Mills completed his Ph.D in physical organic chemistry with Peter Beak at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign. He carried out post-doctoral studies on the total synthesis of natural products with Professor Clayton Heathcock at UC Berkeley as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow. Sandy joined Merck Research Laboratories in the department of Process Research, moving to the medicinal chemistry area in 1989. During his 28 year career at Merck, he held a number of leadership positions, including Head of Medicinal Chemistry at the Rahway site, Head of the Rahway research site, Head of Global Chemistry, and Head of Process Chemistry. Sandy's research at Merck was wide-ranging, dealing with the design and synthesis of small molecules to treat asthma, pain, HIV infection, autoimmune diseases, and CNS disorders. In 1993 he was part of the team that discovered aprepitant (Emend®), which in 2003 became the first substance P antagonist marketed for the prevention of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. He and the group went on to identify fosaprepitant (Ivemend®), a water-soluble prodrug of aprepitant for parenteral administration. For this work, he was awarded the Thomas Edison Patent Award in 2004.
Sandy has been an author or co-author on more than 90 papers on drug design, synthetic organic chemistry and the biology of medicinally active substances. He has been an inventor or co-inventor on 88 U.S. patents. His scientific contributions earned him election to the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 2013 (http://www.njinvent.org/awards/Awards2013.html). He is a member of the American Chemical Society, AAAS and Sigma Xi.
Sandy has been an author or co-author on more than 90 papers on drug design, synthetic organic chemistry and the biology of medicinally active substances. He has been an inventor or co-inventor on 88 U.S. patents. His scientific contributions earned him election to the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame in 2013 (http://www.njinvent.org/awards/Awards2013.html). He is a member of the American Chemical Society, AAAS and Sigma Xi.