Dr Mark Ashton is Executive Vice President, Business Development of Evotec and is responsible for Evotec's commercial and partnering activities. Prior to assuming responsibility for Business Development in 2005, Dr Ashton held a number of positions within Operations at Evotec: He joined the Company in 1995 as one of the initial employees of the Discovery Division, becoming Department Manager in 2001, Director of Chemistry Services in 2002 and taking over responsibility for Evotec's Discovery Services Division in 2004, where he had responsibility for Evotec's screening, parallel synthesis and medicinal chemistry operations. During his time at Evotec, Dr Ashton has managed a wide range of pharmaceutical and biotechnology related projects, including medicinal chemistry projects, design and synthesis of screening libraries and technology transfer projects and has been involved in the progression of a number of drug candidates into the clinic in numerous therapeutic areas.
Dr Ashton has authored and co-authored a number of peer reviewed papers, articles and book chapters in addition to being named on a number of pharmaceutical patents. He is trained as a medicinal chemist. Prior to joining Evotec Dr Ashton also had spells at ICI Pharmaceuticals and Organon Laboratories.