MICK HITCHCOCK, PhD
Dr. Mick Hitchcock is a bio-pharmaceutical senior executive & researcher with 40 years of experience in the development of pharmaceuticals. He spent 27 years with Gilead Sciences and helped to build it from the small, research-focused organization with 100 employees in 1993 with no products to the 5th largest pharmaceutical company (by market cap). He has contributed in a variety of roles including research, project and portfolio management, medical affairs, strategic planning, senior advisor and others. Prior to Gilead, he was with Bristol-Myers (later Bristol-Myers Squibb) for 12 years in infectious disease research and development.
He is trained as a biochemist/microbiologist, and has extensive experience in the discovery and development of new pharmaceuticals, predominantly those used to treat bacterial and viral diseases. Significant examples include treatments for HIV such as Viread, Truvada and Atripla (the latter being the first once-daily single tablet regimen for HIV therapy). Gilead also developed therapies for Hepatitis C, including Sovaldi, Harvoni and Epclusa, that produce cure rates in excess of 90% with 8-12 weeks of oral treatment.
He completed undergraduate and master's degrees in biochemistry at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology in England, and a doctorate in microbiology at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Although English by birth, he has been a US resident for over 40 years, currently making Reno, Nevada, his home since mid-2009. At the present time, he is involved with the University of Nevada, Reno as immediate past-chair of the UNR Foundation Board of Trustees and as a member of Advisory Councils for the College of Science and the College of Business. He is also a board member of the Nevada Research & Innovation Corporation. Through these activities he has been helping to build infrastructure at UNR including financing equipment purchases for Proteomics, Genomics and Metabolomics and upgraded laboratory space. In addition, in 2014, he established the Mick Hitchcock, Ph.D. Endowed Chair in Medical Biochemistry.