Mary J. Savage PhD

Dr. Mary graduated with a PhD in Pharmacology from Columbia University studying neuron injury and regeneration. She joined Cephalon, Inc. (now Teva Pharmaceuticals) to study Alzheimer's disease (AD) drug discovery and translational sciences research, including amyloid and secretase biology, with application to secretase inhibition, transgenic AD model development, and tau kinase inhibitor biology and drug discovery. Mary continued her study of Alzheimer’s disease at Merck, joining in 2006, where she led translational efforts on several amyloid-beta-, apoE-, and tau-targeted drug discovery programs. In 2009, Mary shifted to become the lead for AD biomarker development, working with consortia including ADNI, ADNI PPSB, and GBSC and leading to the application of patient enrollment biomarkers in two Phase III clinical trials of beta-secretase inhibitor. In 2013, Mary joined the companion diagnostic group at Merck to develop biomarkers for Keytruda, including PD-L1 and Microsatellite Instability High (MSI-H) biomarkers. Her work has led to the US FDA approval of PD-L1 Agilent Pharm Dx IHC assay for selection of late line Gastric, Bladder, and Esophageal cancer patients to receive Keytruda monotherapy, as well as the Japan PMDA approval of the FALCO PCR assay for MSI-H, also for patient selection to receive Keytruda monotherapy. Mary led Merck’s efforts to develop two companion diagnostic assays in the US for MSI-H (Next Generation Sequencing), and mismatch repair deficiency (Immunohistochemistry) prior to joining GlaxoSmithKline where she is leading companion diagnostic efforts for Zejula.