Mark Ator, Ph.D.

Mark brings over 35 years of drug discovery and early drug development experience to FogPharma, with specialties in biochemistry and drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. In addition to his leadership of technical groups, Mark has extensive experience as a discovery project team leader, advancing four projects into preclinical development.

Prior to joining FogPharma, Mark was VP of DMPK and Pharmacology at Psivant Therapeutics, a “computation-first” drug discovery company, and Executive Director of Preclinical Development at Roivant Discovery. Mark was one of the first employees of Oncopia Therapeutics, a start-up focused on targeted protein degraders. Mark spent the majority of his career at Cephalon, where he led a group that spanned early drug discovery (including recombinant protein expression, biochemistry/molecular pharmacology, in vitro ADME, rodent in vivo PK, and PK/PD).  He led the design and implementation of the company’s discovery DMPK strategy. Prior to Cephalon, Mark held positions as a biochemist in Sterling Winthrop Pharmaceuticals Research Division, and SmithKline and French laboratories.

Mark received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he studied mechanistic enzymology in the laboratory of Dr. JoAnne Stubbe. Mark subsequently held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California San Francisco.