Jared Cumming BA, PhD

Dr. Jared Cumming is currently a Director, Global Chemistry at Merck at their Kenilworth site in New Jersey. He received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 1997 working with Professor Gary Posner, and after an NIH post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Barry Trost at Stanford University, he joined the Medicinal Chemistry Department at Schering-Plough in 2001. Both there and after the merger with Merck, he held roles of increasing responsibility in the neuroscience and cardiometabolic disease therapy areas. Jared’s experience has run the gamut from fragment based drug design to lead optimization to working with clinical development teams.
He has worked on a number of compounds that have progressed into the clinic, including verubecestat (MK-8931), a beta-secretase inhibitor in Phase 3 clinical trials for Alzheimer’s disease. He is an inventor on 27 issued patents and a co-author of 29 papers, reviews, and book chapters. Outside of work, when not chasing his four children, Jared enjoys cooking and travel to any destination that includes a large body of salt water.