Michael Barbachyn is the Brummel Chair and Professor of Organic Chemistry at Calvin College, Michigan, US, and an independent consultant at Barbachyn Consulting.

Michael has over 27 years’ experience in medicinal chemistry as a research scientist following periods at Upjohn, Pharmacia & Upjohn, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Pharmacia, Pfizer and AstraZeneca, focused on anti-infectives.

Michael also has 12 years’ pharmaceutical industry management experience as an associate director and director in antibacterial medicinal chemistry at Pharmacia and then Pfizer; and as an infection discovery director and finally as head of external collaborations, Infection Innovative Medicines, at AstraZeneca where he worked until 2012. That year he also joined the faculty at Calvin College and formed his own consulting practice.

Michael co-invented the oxazolidinone antibacterial agents eperezolid (the first oxazolidinone to successfully complete phase I trials), linezolid (approved by the FDA and marketed in 2000 as Zyvox™), PNU-141659 (phase I), PNU-288034 (phase I), and sutezolid (currently in phase II clinical trials for tuberculosis therapy).

He is an inventor of 39 patents and has written or co-written 45 papers and chapters on medicinal chemistry and anti-infectives.

Michael received his PhD in organic chemistry from Wayne State University and after a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral stint at Yale University, in 1985 he joined The Upjohn Company in Michigan to work on novel antibacterial agents.