Sheila DeWitt
Sheila DeWitt is an American chemist, inventor, and businesswoman. She has worked on automated and high-throughput chemistry during her time at Parke-Davis, chemistry-on-a-chip during her time at Orchid Biosciences, and deuterium-enabled chiral switching, a deuterated drug, during her time at Deuteria Pharmaceuticals and .
Education
Sheila DeWitt earned her B.A. in Chemistry from Cornell University in 1982 and Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from Duke University in 1986.Career
After graduating with her Ph.D., DeWitt worked as a process chemist for FMC Corporation Agricultural Chemical Division in Middleport, NY, where she had worked previously as a research assistant and chemist during college. Dr. DeWitt later moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to work as a scientist and eventual Chair of the Molecular Diversity Project Team at Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research. At Orchid Biocomputer in Princeton, NJ, she began working as the Director of Business Development in 1997.Following the 2008 recession, DeWitt co-founded Deuteria Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which Celgene acquired in December 2012 for $42M. Following the acquisition, DeWitt formed DeuteRx, LLC, to develop further deuterated drug products. In 2018, DeuteRx sold PXL065, deuterium-stabilitized -enantiomer of pioglitazone, and related deuterated thiazolidinedione products to Poxel SA, a French clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on therapies for rare metabolic diseases. Poxel announced positive results from the PXL065 Phase 2 trial in March 2023. Salarius Pharmaceuticals, Inc., purchased SP-3164 and related protein degraders from DeuteRx in January 2022.
Awards and recognition
announced Sheila DeWitt as the 2012 Buzz of BIO winner at the corresponding BIO International Convention.In 2013, Sheila DeWitt was featured in the C&E News cover story, "Female Entrepreneurs: Facing challenges beyond science and business."
DeWitt is featured in Famous Organic Chemists by the American Chemical Society. In 2025, DeWitt was awarded two awards by the American Chemical Society: the Kathryn C. Hach Award for Entrepreneurial Success and the Gertrude Elion Medicinal Chemistry Award.