Tony Shuker is experienced in the science and the business of drug discovery and has seen the highs and lows of both. His career as a synthetic and medicinal chemist has yielded numerous patents in the United States and abroad, as well as several molecules in clinical development. And his work as an advocate of the biotechnology industry has helped to establish several independent research and development companies.

Dr. Shuker was formerly a senior scientist at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, where he had responsibility for leading a number of major drug discovery and development projects that resulted in multiple clinical candidates. While at Lilly, he led a team that brought a compound to clinical trial in 210 days, the fastest "time to trial" for a compound in the company's history.

Following his pharmaceutical career, Dr. Shuker has been involved in a number of entrepreneurial ventures and served as president of the privately held NuTec Life Sciences and EmTech Bioscience. He was most recently part of the executive management team of Somatocor Pharmaceuticals and founded Prism Therapeutics. Dr. Shuker serves on the Board of the Georgia Biomedical Partnership, the Atlanta Biotechnology Network and is a member of the Metro Atlanta Biotechnology Task Force.

Because of his dual perspective as both scientist and entrepreneur, Shuker has been in high demand as a speaker, addressing dozens of conferences and organizations.

He has a First Class Honors degree from the University of Bath and a Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham in the group of Prof. Gerry Pattenden (FRS). Dr. Shuker has also served as a SERC/NATO Research Fellow at Stanford in the lab of Paul Wender, where he worked on the total synthesis of Taxol