Dr. Donnie McGrath is the chief of corporate strategy and business development at Biohaven Pharmaceuticals in New Haven, CT, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with a portfolio of innovative, late-stage product candidates targeting neurological diseases, including rare disorders. He has over 22 years of clinical research and pharmaceutical business development experience. From 2013 to 2017, he was vice president of business development and head of search and evaluation at Bristol-Myers Squibb. During this period, the business development group executed over 50 major transactions in the therapeutic areas of oncology, neuroscience, cardiovascular, fibrosis, immuno-science, virology, and genetically-defined diseases.

In addition, Donnie was responsible for overseeing BMS’s venture capital investment portfolio, and provided leadership for all global external partnering activities. From 2010 to 2013, he was executive director in business development with responsibility for neuroscience and virology. In 2005, he joined the BMS virology clinical development group as a director of clinical research, and became group director in 2007.

Born in the U.K. and raised in his father’s home county of Dublin, Donnie  attended both University College Dublin, where he earned a degree in archaeology and sociology, and the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland, where he acquired a medical degree in 1990. Growing up in Ireland, he says, taught him that the world needs “more scholars, fewer saints, and a better sense of humor.”

Donnie went on to become assistant professor of medicine at his postgraduate alma mater, Tufts University. His specialization in infectious diseases took him to South Africa in 2002, where he conducted research in HIV infection at the Africa Centre in KwaZulu Natal province. In 2004, the Africa Centre initiated the first district-wide HIV treatment program in sub-Saharan Africa.

Donnie lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Michelle, and children, Tim and Molly.