UW Provost Phyllis Wise announced today the selection of Thomas Baillie to become the next dean of the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. Baillie has had a distinguished academic career and also has worked in leadership positions in private industry. His appointment, effective Oct. 1, 2008, is subject to approval by the UW Board of Regents.

"I am extremely pleased that Tom Baillie will be returning to the UW to lead the school where he spent so many productive and satisfying years on the faculty," Provost Wise said. "The combination of his experience and familiarity with the UW and his frontline experience in industry make him a very attractive candidate--uniquely qualified--to lead the School of Pharmacy. We're very excited by his return."

Baillie has been at Merck & Co., Inc., a global pharmaceutical company, since 1994. He was executive director of preclinical drug metabolism from 1994 to 1996, vice president of drug metabolism from 1996 to 2007 and, most recently, vice president and global head of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. In the latter role, he was head of an organization of 350 employees and reported to the senior vice president for worldwide preclinical development.

Baillie's academic career began at the University of London, in 1975, where he was a lecturer in analytical chemistry in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology. In 1978 he joined the University of California -- San Francisco and, in 1981, he became a member of the pharmacy faculty at the UW, where he stayed until joining Merck in 1994. During his academic career, Baillie has served on a number of advisory and scientific review panels at both the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and he was awarded a Senior International Fogarty Fellowship (1988-89) for research conducted at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

Baillie's research interests lie in the application of mass spectrometry and associated techniques to mechanistic studies in the fields of foreign compound metabolism and chemical toxicology. He is author of some 250 publications, serves on the advisory boards of several scientific journals and professional organizations and, in 2002, he was a co-recipient of the James R. Gillette Award from the American Society of Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics.

Baillie has a B.Sc. in chemistry (1970), Ph.D. in organic chemistry (1973), and D.Sc. in chemistry (1992) from the University of Glasgow. He also has an M.Sc.in biochemistry (1978) from the University of London.

The University of Washington School of Pharmacy is recognized nationally as an innovative leader in pharmacy education, scholarship, and research. Its students are among the best and the brightest and continue to be an influential force long after graduation. The school ranks fifth among pharmacy schools in the country, according to annual rankings of graduate and professional programs provided by U.S. News & World Report.

Baillie's annual salary will be $300,000.