Ming-Tain Lai, Ph. D.

Dr. Lai has more than 23 years of experience in drug discovery. As Senior Principal Scientist at Merck & Co., Dr. Lai led and directed multiple independent project teams to develop potential clinical candidates. He also acted as a core team member of early development and product development in several clinical studies. During his tenure at Merck, the teams have identified more than 10 preclinical candidates. Several of them are currently in clinical trials. He also received several awards from Merck, Merck Divisional/Staff Area Award in 2007, Special achievement award in 2009, and Merck Research Laboratories Pipeline Award in 2018. The crowing achievements of his career at Merck comes with the approval of an antiviral drug by FDA in 2018. Dr. Lai has had over 69 papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Lai did post-doctoral study in at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earned his Ph.D. in Bio-Organic Chemistry from University of Minnesota.​