Dr. John Amatruda is a senior pharmaceutical research executive, and the former Senior Vice President and Franchise Head for Diabetes and Obesity at Merck Research Laboratories. Under Dr. Amatruda’s leadership, the development program and regulatory approvals of JanuviaTM and JanumetTM – the first compounds in the important class of DPP-IV inhibitors for Type 2 diabetes – were initiated and completed. He was also a member of the Research Management Committee and acting Therapeutic Area Head for Cardiovascular Disease while at Merck.

More recently, Dr. Amatruda was on the Scientific Advisory Board of Marcadia Biotech Inc., a preclinical stage Type 2 diabetes / obesity company that was acquired by Roche Holding Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland in December, 2010.

In addition to his tenure at Merck, Dr. Amatruda started and ran a drug discovery group at Bayer Corp where he served as Vice President and Therapeutic Area Research Head for Metabolic Disorders research, as well as a Professor of Medicine Adjunct at Yale University School of Medicine. He is board certified in internal medicine, endocrinology and metabolism and has a proven track record in academics and pharmaceutical discovery research and development, including several novel candidate compounds, Investigational New Drugs (INDs), translational studies, development programs and four New Drug Applications (NDAs).

Dr. Amatruda is an author on over 150 papers, abstracts, reviews and book chapters, primarily in the areas of insulin action in vitro systems and in clinical diabetes and obesity. He graduated from Yale University, received his MD degree from the Medical College of Wisconsin and did his internship and residency in Internal Medicine and Fellowship in Endocrinology and Metabolism at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.