Mark was previously a clinical programme head at GSK in London, Associate Director, Clinical at Gilead Sciences in California, and Chief Operating Officer of Australia’s vaccine design and development consortium at the University of New South Wales. He has contributed to three successful global registrational programs for HIV and hepatitis B therapeutics, has worked on 40 small molecule and biologic development programs at all stages, and led the development of moxidectin through FDA approval. Mark is the 2019 Victorian Australian of the Year.
In 2005 he founded not-for-profit Medicines Development for Global Health to bring industry expertise and much-needed funding to the development of neglected diseases affecting mostly people in the developing world. Sullivan secured funding for the work based on the potential value of auctioning off a transferable Priority Review voucher which the FDA gives to developers of drugs for neglected tropical diseases and can cut approval time for a new drug from 10 months to 6 months an advantage for which drug makers have recently paid over $100 million. With the proceeds from the pending auction Sullivan aims to expand MDGH’s portfolio and prove a model for neglected disease research that doesn’t require being an organization with our hand out for donations.