Matthew Sherman, senior vice-president, Synta Pharmaceuticals, Lexington, Massachusetts

Matthew Sherman's career path seems almost cyclical. Emerging from an academic background in Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, he went to work for the Genetics Institute, a small biotechnology company in Cambridge. That was eventually acquired by the drug giant American Home Products based in Pennsylvania. Now, some 12 years later, Sherman finds himself back in the Boston area as senior vice-president and chief medical officer for another small company, Synta Pharmaceuticals (see CV).

Sherman attributes his career direction to Alexander Rich, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with whom Sherman worked as an undergraduate. Rich was an MD who had opted for a career in X-ray crystallography rather than clinical practice. He pointed out to Sherman that the traditional path from MD into practice or PhD to tenure was not obligatory.

Sherman took that advice and after earning his MD began a fellowship that allowed him to split his time between patient care and oncology research. That led to a position where he could add teaching to his research and clinical practice. “I love all three,” Sherman says.

During his nine years in academia, Sherman began cultivating an entrepreneurial side. “I was interested in combining all the skills I'd learned in the lab with the business skills of what it took to put a company together and to develop a product,” Sherman says.

So in 1992, he bit the bullet and left academia to join the Genetics Institute. There he was able to learn the business of drug discovery and development. But after five years of on-the-job training, the company was bought by American Home Products and Sherman found himself working for a very large firm.

Now that he has spent time in such an environment he is ready for a new challenge. “I wanted to take the skill sets I learned and apply them to the small biotech setting at Synta,” he says.

The Synta job appealed to him because, having specialized in oncology and immunology, he can now work across all disease groups and have a broader involvement with the drug-development process. And in doing so, he wants to keep the spirit of good mentoring alive. “As a professor, your biggest impact is on the students you teach. In industry, it's the employees under you,” says Sherman.