Vice President, Research And Development

Richard Showalter joined Polaris in 2012 with over 28 years of experience in molecular biology, protein expression, purification and structure-based drug design.

He spent over 16 years at the Agouron Institute and Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc., Warner-Lambert and Pfizer, where his protein engineering skills facilitated the development of INLYTA® for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma. After leaving Pfizer, he joined Anadys Pharmaceuticals and was instrumental in the development of setrobuvir for the treatment of HCV.

After the sale of Anadys to Roche Pharmaceuticals, he came to Polaris where he made significant improvements in the production and manufacture of ADI-PEG20, our lead compound, and continues to develop additional biologic reagents for the treatment of cancer as well as develop our CDMO projects.

He serves as a Member of the Board at Nanotein Technologies Inc. a company which Polaris has a collaboration agreement with. Richard received his B.A. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UCSD.