Nicholas B. Lydon FRS (born 27 February 1957) is a British scientist and entrepreneur. In 2009, he was awarded the Lasker Clinical Award and in 2012 the

Japan Prize is awarded to people from all parts of the world whose "original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind." The P ...

for the development of

Gleevec Imatinib, sold under the brand names Gleevec and Glivec (both marketed worldwide by Novartis) among others, is an oral chemotherapy medication used to treat cancer. Imatinib is a small molecule inhibitor targeting multiple receptor tyrosine kin ...

, also known as Imatinib, a selective BCR-ABL inhibitor for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), which converted a fatal cancer into a manageable chronic condition.

Education

Lydon was educated at

Strathallan School Strathallan School is an independent boarding and day school in Scotland for boys and girls aged 7–18. The school has a campus at Forgandenny, a few miles south of Perth. School roll The school has 73 full-time staff, and 18 part-time staff ...

near

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

from the

University of Leeds , mottoeng = And knowledge will be increased , established = 1831 – Leeds School of Medicine1874 – Yorkshire College of Science1884 - Yorkshire College1887 – affiliated to the federal Victoria University1904 – University of Leeds , ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1978 and received his PhD in biochemistry from the

University of Dundee The University of Dundee; . Abbreviated as ''Dund.'' for post-nominals. is a public university, public research university based in Dundee, Scotland. It was founded as a University college#United Kingdom, university college in 1881 with a donation ...

, Scotland in 1982.

Career

In 1982, Lydon accepted a position with

Schering-Plough Schering-Plough Corporation was an American pharmaceutical company. It was originally the U.S. subsidiary of the German company Schering AG, which was founded in 1851 by Ernst Christian Friedrich Schering. As a result of nationalization, it becam ...

based in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

as Chargé de Récherche. Three years later, he moved to Switzerland to work with Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals, with whom he developed Gleevec. In 1997, he established Kinetex Pharmaceuticals in Boston which was acquired by

Amgen Amgen Inc. (formerly Applied Molecular Genetics Inc.) is an American multinational biopharmaceutical Corporation, company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. One of the world's largest independent biotechnology companies, Amgen was esta ...

in 2000, with whom he worked until 2002. Thereafter, he established several companies that continue to develop drugs to treat various conditions.

Honours and awards

Warren Alpert Foundation Prize The Warren Alpert Foundation Prize is awarded annually to scientist(s) whose scientific achievements have led to the prevention, cure or treatment of human diseases or disorders, and/or whose research constitutes a seminal scientific finding that ho ...

, 2000. * Twenty First Annual AACR-Bruce F. Cain Memorial Award, 2002. * Charles F.

Kettering Prize The Charles F. Kettering Prize was a US$250,000 award given by the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation for the most outstanding recent contribution to the diagnosis or treatment of cancer. __TOC__ History The award was named in honor of Charl ...

, General Motors Cancer Research Foundation, 2002. * The

Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award is one of four annual awards presented by the Lasker Foundation. The Lasker-DeBakey award is given to honor outstanding work for the understanding, diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and cure of diseas ...

, with

Brian Druker Brian J. Druker (born April 30, 1955) is a physician-scientist at Oregon Health & Science University, in Portland, Oregon. He is the director of OHSU's Knight Cancer Institute, Jeld-Wen Chair of Leukemia Research, and professor of medicine. In 2 ...

and

Charles Sawyers Charles L. Sawyers (born 1959) is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator who holds the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program (HOPP) at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). HO ...

, 2009. * The

, with Brian Druker and

Janet Rowley Janet Davison Rowley (April 5, 1925 – December 17, 2013) was an American human geneticist and the first scientist to identify a chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers, thus proving that cancer is a genetic disease. ...

, 2012. *

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

, 2013. * Royal Society GlaxoSmithKline Prize and Lecture, 2014 Lydon's nomination for the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

reads:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lydon, Nicholas 1957 births Living people People educated at Strathallan School Alumni of the University of Leeds Alumni of the University of Dundee British biochemists Cancer researchers British company founders Fellows of the Royal Society Recipients of the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award