Darby Schmidt

Darby Schmidt is currently CSO of Violet Therapeutics. She was previously VP of Drug Discovery at Sonata Therapeutics, where she led creation of their small molecule pipeline. She has 20 years’ experience at small and large companies, including Merck, Caraway Therapeutics, Syros Pharmaceuticals, and Quartet Medicine. Dr. Schmidt has experience leading teams in the areas of pain, neurodegeneration, inflammation, and oncology and has worked in lead generation, hit to lead, lead optimization, and preclinical development. She has contributed to 9 development candidates and 3 INDs. Darby received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Harvard University working with Stuart Schreiber and performed postdoctoral studies with James Leighton at Columbia University where she worked on a natural product synthesis.