Pat O'Neill

Pat graduated with a BSc(hon) in chemistry from UCD in 1982 with 1st class honours and studied for a PhD i(1989) in the same institution under the mentorship of Prof . Frank Hegarty.  He started as a research chemist in Iropharm Ltd in 1987 and specialised early in the development of novel routes to key intermediates and APIs which were the core business of this small generic firm.  In 1992, he transferred to Schering-Plough (Avondale) Ltd as a senior research chemist and led a team specialising in the inward transfer of oncology assets as well as leading a team developing second generation routes to Schering-Plough small molecule APIs.  For the latter activity, he and a team member won the prestigious Schering-Plough Presidents Award for research, which had not previously been won in an Irish affiliate.

In 2004, Pat transferred to Pfizer Ireland Pharmaceuticals as a Principal Scientist, leading a team of scientists in the newly formed Process Development Centre.  This team was a newly formed one and, over the years, developed novel routes to many of Pfizer's blockbuster APIs – such as Lipitor^® , Lyrica^® and Vfend^®.  This activity led to many patents and publications and Pat led the development of a robust IP capture strategy for novel routes.  He led outreach efforts from Pfizer Ireland to third level institutions in Ireland and elsewhere and has acted as an industrial mentor for several industrial post-graduate scientists. He has co-led many research projects with academics in Singapore via the Pharmaceutical Innovation Program Singapore (PIPS) as  well as being a Pfizer rep in the current PharmECO consortium. He has been an adjunct professor in University College Cork since 2019. He is very interested in the area of sustainable industrial synthesis, particularly in the synthesis of useful materials from carbon dioxide and/or biomass.