Dr. Robert Young worked for Merck for twenty-nine years.  He was VP of Medicinal Chemistry and acting site head at Merck Frosst in Montreal and site head at the MRL Terlings Park Neuroscience Centre in the UK. In 2006, he took early retirement and joined the Chemistry Department of Simon Fraser University as the Merck Frosst-BC Leadership Chair in Drug Discovery where he continues research in developing new drugs. In his career, Dr. Young led development of five approved drugs including Singulair TM  for asthma and Arcoxia TM  for arthritis and has founded three companies. He was President of the Canadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2012-14 and has been recognized with a number of awards including the ACS Heroes of Chemistry, two Prix Galien, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Order of Canada. He is currently President and founder of Mesentech Inc. a company developing new therapies to treat diseases and conditions related to bones.

Dr. Young has a PhD in chemistry from the University of British Columbia, was a postdoc at the Imperial College at London and University of Adelaide and was a Research Associate at the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles (Gif-sur-Yvette, France).