Dr. McTigue has over 28 years of experience discovering and developing small-molecule pharmaceutical therapies. She is an expert in structure-based drug design with an emphasis on protein structure elucidation. Previously she worked as a Senior Principal Scientist at Pfizer and Agouron Pharmaceuticals serving as project leader or discipline lead on over 20 projects ranging from project initiation through post-approval activities. She was directly involved in the design of 3 approved therapies (axitinib, crizotinib, lorlatinib) and 7 other clinical candidate compounds. For this work she has been recognized with American Chemical Society Hero of Chemistry awards in 2018 and 2021. She is the lead author on 65 protein structures deposited in the Protein Data Bank and a coauthor on many drug discovery/development publications. She has also served as an education/public relations representative for Pfizer, meeting with many diverse groups including patient advocates, government representatives, educators and students.
Dr. McTigue received a B.S. in Chemistry from Youngstown State University, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California San Diego, and was a post-doctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute.