William(bill) J. Martin PhD

Bill serves as BlackThorn’s chief scientific officer and was a founding member of the company’s management team. Prior to joining BlackThorn, Bill was an executive director at Theravance Biopharma where he led the company’s research portfolio planning initiative, was a member of the licensing and strategic partnership team, and served as a project team leader for an advanced clinical stage asset.

Bill began his industrial career at Merck where he had research, development and strategic responsibilities in Neuroscience. Bill served as a member on the committee that oversaw the strategic direction of Merck’s Neuroscience franchise as well as a co-chair for Early Development and Product Development teams for CNS drug candidates.

Bill has been responsible for advancing multiple NCEs into development, with at least half of these reaching Phase 2. An active member of the scientific community at-large, he has been an author on more than 70 primary research and review articles, and is a former councilor of the Society for Neuroscience and is active in science policy, diversity, and professional development.

Bill graduated from Swarthmore College, earned his Ph.D. from Brown University, and carried out his postdoctoral research at the Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience at the University of California at San Francisco.