Deborah Slipetz

Deborah has over 30 years’ experience as a drug hunter and innovation leader. She is the Chief Scientific Officer of Paratus Sciences. Prior to that she was the Executive Director of the RTW Charitable Foundation, focused on the development of therapeutics for ultra-rare diseases, as well as Consulting Managing Director at RTW Investments. During her tenure at Merck & Co. she discovered and developed marketed medicines including Singulair™.

She has deep knowledge in multiple therapeutic areas including respiratory, immunology, cardiovascular, neuroscience and infectious diseases. She has extensive expertise in the identification of small molecule therapeutics and gene therapy through all phases of development: target identification to clinical proof of concept. She also co-founded a center for innovation and collaboration, “imagine@Merck”. “Imagine@Merck” reached over 6000 employees in 18 months and implemented solutions enterprise wide that solve complex business problems and build cultural engagement to ultimately deliver medicines to patients faster. At her core she is an innovative drug discovery scientist with highly developed to the same leadership abilities and detailed experience in strategic planning and implementation.