Frank Kayser, Ph.D.

Frank Kayser, Ph.D., is the Vice President of Drug Discovery of Nitrase Therapeutics. Dr. Kayser has more than 25 years of senior-level experience in drug discovery and has led multidisciplinary teams that progressed compounds from early chemical leads into optimized drug candidates in late-stage clinical trials. With expertise in medicinal chemistry and structure-based drug design, he has developed numerous drug candidates for neuroscience, oncology, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and immunology. Before Nitrase Therapeutics, Dr. Kayser was the Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery at BioArdis, where he spearheaded all aspects of small molecule discovery. Previously, he was the Head of Chemistry and Senior Vice President of Chemistry in charge of delivering full integrated drug discovery at BioDuro, and he led the chemistry department at Nurix. Additionally, he has held research and management positions in the pharmaceutical industry at Amgen, Tularik and Merck. Dr. Kayser is a co-author on more than 40 U.S.-issued and corresponding international patents, and multiple pending U.S. and PCT applications. He has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Marburg, Germany with Prof. M. T. Reetz, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. B. H. Lipshutz at the University of California, Santa Barbara.