Daniel F. Veber
Daniel Frank Veber is a medicinal chemist whose career bridged the transition from classical peptide synthesis to modern structure-based drug design, establishing foundational principles that continue to guide pharmaceutical research worldwide.
Born September 9, 1939, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Veber studied chemistry at Yale University, earning his B.A. in 1961, M.S. in 1962, and Ph.D. in organic chemistry in 1964. A summer research fellowship during his undergraduate years sparked his interest in pursuing a career in chemistry.
Veber joined Merck Sharp & Dohme in West Point, Pennsylvania, immediately after completing his doctorate in 1964, beginning a nearly thirty-year tenure that would see him rise from Senior Chemist to Senior Director of Medicinal Chemistry. His early work contributed to Merck's landmark 1969 synthesis of ribonuclease S-protein, announced alongside Bruce Merrifield's parallel synthesis of ribonuclease A at a joint press conference at Rockefeller University. This achievement demonstrated that complex enzymes could be chemically synthesized and stimulated pharmaceutical industry interest in peptide therapeutics.
Veber's most celebrated research involved somatostatin, the growth hormone release-inhibiting factor. Working under Ralph Hirschmann at Merck's West Point laboratories, he led the team that used conformational analysis and computer graphics to design constrained cyclic peptide analogs. Their 1981 Nature paper describing a potent cyclic hexapeptide somatostatin analog demonstrated that the bioactive conformation could be stabilized through strategic cyclization, dramatically improving metabolic stability and even achieving limited oral activity. This work established the conceptual framework for peptidomimetics and influenced the development of octreotide (Sandostatin), one of the first commercially successful peptide drugs.
His expertise in enzyme structure proved valuable for HIV therapeutics, where his work on protease inhibitor design contributed to the development of antiretroviral drugs.
In 1993, Veber moved to SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, as Director of Medicinal Chemistry, a position he held until retirement in 2002. During this period, he published his most highly cited work: a 2002 Journal of Medicinal Chemistry paper analyzing oral bioavailability data from over 1,100 drug candidates. The resulting "Veber rules"—that compounds with 10 or fewer rotatable bonds and polar surface area ≤140 Å2 have high probability of good oral bioavailability—became a standard filter in drug discovery, cited nearly 6,000 times and complementing the widely used Lipinski "Rule of Five."
Veber received the American Peptide Society's Alan E. Pierce Award (now the R. Bruce Merrifield Award) in 1991, the American Chemical Society's Philadelphia Section Award in 1988, and the ACS Ralph F. Hirschmann Award in Peptide Chemistry in 2001. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honorary member of the New York Academy of Sciences, and a member of Sigma Xi. Throughout his career, he authored or co-authored 275 peer-reviewed publications and held numerous U.S. patents, while serving on editorial boards including the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and Journal of Peptide Science.
After retirement, Veber continued as an independent consultant to the pharmaceutical industry from his home in Ambler, Pennsylvania, and served on the board of directors of Tranzyme Pharma. He remains a former council member of the American Peptide Society.