John Finn, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer,
is a proven leader in anti-infective research and innovator in drug discovery. Prior to founding Trius, he was recruited to San Diego by Elitra to become the Vice President of Drug Discovery. From 1998 to 2003, Dr. Finn was at Cubist Pharmaceuticals where as Senior Director of Lead Discovery and Optimization he led multiple teams including medicinal chemistry, screening/compound profiling and enzymology. At Cubist, Dr. Finn advanced multiple target-based discovery programs into medicinal chemistry optimization, initiated and ran the lipopeptide program and chaired the Syrrx collaboration. Prior to Cubist, Dr. Finn worked for American Cyanamid where he initiated the low residual imidazolinone program that resulted in the product Raptor. He also became a leader in both Structure-Based Drug Design programs and the use of combinatorial chemistry in lead discovery and optimization. Overall, Dr. Finn has over 20 years experience in medicinal chemistry. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois and his undergraduate degree from Villanova University in chemistry.