Dr. Michael R Barbachyn

Biography

Mike Barbachyn initiated his 27-year career in the pharmaceutical industry by joining The Upjohn Company in 1985 and conducting medicinal chemistry research in the antibacterial agent area. His early efforts were focused on monocyclic beta-lactam antibiotics, exemplified by the monobactam aztreonam, and culminated in the identification of a pre-clinical drug candidate, U-78608, a potent antipseudomonal monocarbam incorporating a siderophore-mimicking side chain. He continued to work on a variety of antibacterial agent classes, including the fluoroquinolones and oxazolidinones. A number of compounds from both of these classes were ultimately identified as pre-clinical drug candidates, with several oxazolidinone analogs eventually progressing to human clinical trials. For example, he co-invented the clinical oxazolidinones eperezolid (PNU-100592, the first oxazolidinone to successfully complete Phase 1 trials), linezolid (PNU-100766, approved by the FDA and marketed in 2000 as Zyvox™), PNU-141659 (Phase 1), PNU-288034 (Phase 1), and sutezolid (PNU-100480, currently in Phase 2 clinical trials for TB therapy). Over the course of his industrial career, he also engaged in research involving a number of other novel pre-clinical classes of antibacterials, arising from either target-based or phenotypic screening. During the course of his stay in Kalamazoo, MI, his employer’s name changed repeatedly because of a series of mergers, first to Pharmacia & Upjohn, then Pharmacia, and finally Pfizer. In 2003, he moved to the Pfizer site in Ann Arbor, MI, where he continued to actively work in the antibacterial area for another 4 years. Upon Pfizer’s closure of the Ann Arbor research site, he joined the infection group at AstraZeneca, in Waltham, MA, where his focus was again on anti-infective discovery and development over a 5-year period. 

In 2012, he formed his own consulting practice, Barbachyn Consulting, LLC, and also joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Calvin College, (now Calvin University) in Grand Rapids, MI, where he was the Brummel Chair in Organic Chemistry through August 2020. His research efforts at Calvin have been and are currently aimed at developing new synthetic methodology that can be applied to the preparation of novel anti-infective agents. He remains active in the anti-infective community, regularly serving on NIH and CARB-X Study Sections and reviewing manuscripts submitted for publication. Mike also serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several antibacterial biotech companies, including Forge Therapeutics, Curza, Linnaeus Bioscience, and Bactria.