Synta Pharmaceuticals: Strategy and Pipeline

In this exclusive interview, Fintan Walton talks to Safi Bahcall, President and CEO of Synta Pharmaceuticals. They begin by discussing Synta's origins, and how the company was established through the research of Harvard and MIT scientists. Safi talks about Synta's lead anticancer product and explains its mechanism of action, as well as reviewing the current state of the company's pipeline. He expands upon the terms of Synta's major agreement with GlaxoSmithKline and the interview concludes with a discussion of Synta's growth strategy.

About Safi Bahcall

Dr Bahcall co-founded Synta with Dr Lan Bo Chen and has been Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors since July 2001, and President since December 2003. He has led Synta from its inception through multiple acquisitions, financings, an IPO, and the establishment of an integrated drug discovery and development organisation, including five unique programmes in development. Before founding Synta, Dr Bahcall was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, serving investment banks and pharmaceutical companies on strategy, technology and operations. Dr Bahcall also founded a drug discovery company focused on novel ion channel research, which is now part of Synta. He received his BA summa cum laude from Harvard University, was awarded his PhD from Stanford University in theoretical physics, and was a Miller postdoctoral fellow at University of California Berkeley.

About Synta Pharmaceuticals

Synta Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercialising novel pharmaceutical products for extending and enhancing the lives of patients with severe medical conditions, including cancer and chronic inflammatory disease. Synta has a unique chemical compound library, an integrated discovery engine, and a pipeline of small molecule drug candidates with novel chemical structures and distinct mechanisms of action.