Michael Kinch

Michael S. Kinch, Ph.D. is a professor of pharmacology at Stony Brook University and a prolific scholar in the field of pharmaceutical innovation. A tenured academic with an h-index of 59 and more than 15,000 citations, he has authored six trade books and more than 160 peer-reviewed publications spanning drug development, industry consolidation, and public health.

Dr. Kinch is the creator of CDEK — the Comprehensive Drug and Experimental Knowledgebase — a first-of-its-kind resource that tracks every experimental and FDA-approved drug back to 1899. CDEK serves as the empirical backbone for his research and has reshaped how scientists, policymakers, and industry leaders understand the history and trajectory of medicine.

Beyond the laboratory and the library, Dr. Kinch is a committed advocate for open data and public transparency in science. He works closely with Data 4 The People to democratize access to pharmaceutical and biomedical data, believing that a more informed public leads to better outcomes for patients, innovators, and society alike.

A seasoned leader in innovation and entrepreneurship, he has held executive roles at MedImmune and Functional and has also led innovation and entrepreneurship activities at Yale University, Washington University in St Louis and Stony Brook University. He co-leads the CrisiScience Collaborative, an independent network of more than 100 scientists and senior experts convening to address urgent scientific and policy challenges.

Dr. Kinch's latest book, Behind the Mask, was published by Purdue University Press in October 2026.