Robert Copeland

Advisor

Robert Copeland

Advisor

Robert A. Copeland, Ph.D., is a biomedical sciences entrepreneur with a strong track record of starting, building and leading successful drug discovery organizations. Copeland founded Accent Therapeutics in 2017 and served as its President & Chief Scientific Officer through 2024. He was formerly President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer of Epizyme, Inc. and before that, Vice President of Cancer Biology, Oncology Center of Excellence in Drug Discovery, GlaxoSmithKline.

Copeland’s scientific interest focuses on an integrative approach to understanding the molecular determinants of drug-target interactions and the use of this information to drive discovery and development of new medicines. This has led him to also make seminal contributions in the field of enzymology. In 2016 he also formulated the drug-target residence time model, which has found use in a broad range of fundamental sciences, including physics, chemistry, and biology.

Copeland has contributed to drug discovery and development efforts leading to 20 investigational new drugs entering human clinical trials, of which 5 are today FDA-approved medicines. He has contributed more than 200 publications to the scientific literature, holds 14 issued U.S. patents and has authored six books in the areas of protein science and enzymology. Dr. Copeland was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Dr. Copeland received his doctorate in chemistry from Princeton University and did postdoctoral studies as the Chaim Weizmann Fellow at the California Institute of Technology.