Simon Bushell is an accomplished medicinal chemist and chemical biologist who brings nearly two decades of drug discovery experience to Entact. Throughout his career, Simon has led molecular discovery to enable target identification and validation, new therapeutic modalities, lead finding initiatives, and candidate optimization across multiple therapeutic areas. His passion is the use of chemistry to understand biology, and vice versa, with the goal of bringing forth new medicines. Simon has extensive scientific and strategic leadership experience in both biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies through previous roles at Odyssey Therapeutics, Merck, and Novartis. He’s a long-standing advocate for mentorship programs to cultivate a work environment which encourages curiosity and innovation through openness and humility. Simon grew up in the UK and earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) before moving to the US to complete postdoctoral training at Boston College, in Chestnut Hill, MA. Outside of work, Simon’s a weekend warrior cyclist and swim taxi driver for his three active boys, and he "treats" them to his love of learning through podcasts (anything by Malcolm Gladwell or Adam Grant) or Audible as they drive around!