Derek Cole, Ph.D.

The founder of Ferdia Therapeutics and Principal Investigator, Dr. Cole, spent over 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry, working to discover novel therapeutics for treating indications of high unmet medical need. 

Most recently, Dr. Cole held the position of Senior Vice President, Head of Discovery, at RayzeBio, where he led a team working to develop peptide binders to cell surface receptors to selectively deliver radiotherapy to solid tumors. Prior to RayzeBio, Dr. Cole was the Senior Director, GI-Chemistry & In Vitro Pharmacology at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where he developed peptide therapeutics optimized for once-daily or once-weekly subcutaneous injection. Dr. Cole believes the key to success starts with the discovery of peptide therapeutics optimized for high potency, selectivity, solubility, and stability, allowing for low-volume injection at neutral pH, thus patient discomfort. Dr. Cole's recent work at Takeda led to the discovery of gastric inhibitory peptide agonists suitable for once-daily and once-weekly subcutaneous injections, currently in Phase I clinical testing as antiemetics. 

Dr. Cole earned a B.S. in chemistry at the University of Limerick, Ireland, a Ph.D. in synthetic chemistry at the University of Alberta, Canada and completed postdoctoral training on peptide drug discovery at Texas Tech University.