Homer Pearce, Ph.D.

Dr. Pearce recently retired from Lilly Research Laboratories where he served as Vice President of Cancer Research and Clinical Investigation and Distinguished Research Fellow. Dr. Pearce has more than 27 years of experience in cancer drug discovery and was involved in the development of more than 25 investigational drugs which entered clinical trials for cancer, of which three have resulted in regulatory approvals and others are still in development. These drugs, which include Gemzar and Alimta, achieved 2007 combined worldwide sales exceeding $2 billion. His work included the use of natural products as models to identify new leads for cancer drug discovery and new efforts to probe mechanisms of drug resistance. He has been a consultant to the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Dr. Pearce received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard.