Roth was born in June 1954. He received his undergraduate degree from St. Joseph's College, Philadelphia, in 1976. He then went to Iowa State University as a doctoral student under George Kraus, receiving his Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1981. He then spent a year as a Postdoctoral Fellow with A.S. Kende at the University of Rochester.
Career
Roth has held a number of positions in his career, from "Scientist" through to vice president-level positions in drug discovery, and his accomplishments in his career include the discovery of the molecule atorvastatin, which would become the drug Lipitor.
Positions
In 1982, 28-year-old Roth began work as a medicinal chemist for the Parke Davis research area of Warner-Lambert, becoming the chemistry co-chair of the statins effort, with biologist Roger Newton, in 1984. By 1985, he was at Warner-Lambert's Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He was promoted to Research Associate in 1986, Senior Research Associate in 1988, Section Director in 1990, Director of Atherosclerosis and Exploratory Chemistry in 1992, and Senior Director of Atherosclerosis, Inflammation and Exploratory Chemistry in 1993. By the early 1990s he held managerial positions and was no longer doing laboratory work. In 2000 Warner-Lambert acquired Parke-Davis. He was appointed Vice President of Chemistry just prior to the merger between Warner-Lambert and Pfizer in 2000 and remained in that role as a part of Pfizer Global Research and Development in Ann Arbor, Michigan until 2007. He then joined Genentech in San Francisco, California as Vice President of Discovery Chemistry.
Atorvastatin
Before atorvastatin, Roth worked to develop a different drug, but Sandoz AG beat his team to a patent. In 1985, while working at Warner-Lambert's Parke-Davis research facility, Roth "identified a molecule" that inhibited HMG CoA reductase, a "key enzyme in the metabolic pathway the body uses to produce cholesterol." Roth was listed as the inventor of trans-6--4-hydroxypyran-2-one, patented in 1986, and developed into the on-market drug, atorvastatin, which ultimately would be sold as Lipitor, and which would become the largest-selling drug in pharmaceutical history by 2003. Pfizer acquired Warner-Lambert and Lipitor in 2000.
Other activities
From 1996 until 2007, Roth served as an adjunct professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Michigan.
Awards and honours
For the discovery of atorvastatin, Roth received the 1997 Warner-Lambert Chairman's Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award, the 1999 Inventor of the Year Award from the New York Intellectual Property Law Association, the 2003 American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention, the 2003 Gustavus John Esselen Award for Chemistry in the Public Service, the 2005 Iowa State University Distinguished Alumni Award, and the 2006 Pfizer Global Research and Development Achievement Award. Roth was named a 2008 Hero of Chemistry by the American Chemical Society. In 2013, he was chosen as the Perkin Medal awardee, the highest honour given in the U.S. chemical industry, by the Society of Chemical Industry, American section, for his innovation in applied chemistry that resulted in the outstanding commercial success of atorvastatin.
Personal life
He and his wife, Michelle, have four children: David, Sarah, Rebecca and Aaron. David Roth was married on July 31, 2010, to Alyssa Roth, formerly Alyssa Dipzinski.
Representative publications
According to the Chemical Heritage Foundation, in "addition to his discovery of atorvastatin, Roth is the inventor or co-inventor of 42 patents and the author or co-author of 48 manuscripts, 35 published abstracts and eight book chapters." His publications include:
Roth BD, Bocan TMA, Blankley CJ, Chucholowski AW, Creger PL, Creswell MW, Ferguson E, Newton RS, O'Brien P, Picard JA, Roark WH, Sekerke CS, Sliskovic DR, Wilson MW. The Relationship Between Tissue Selectivity and Lipophilicity for Inhibitors of HMG-CoA Reductase. J. Med. Chem. 1991, 34, 463-6.
