U-M selects leader for North Campus Research Complex

Exactly one year after purchasing NCRC, the University of Michigan selected the leader who will steer the site's transformation into a vibrant home for academic and private-sector research. Dr. David Canter, a physician, scientist and respected leader, once led the Pfizer pharmaceutical research operation on the site now known as the NCRC. In his new role as the executive director of NCRC, Canter has the responsibility for mapping, developing and implementing the university's strategy to make the most of the site's 28 buildings and dozens of acres of open land.

After nearly 25 years in pharmaceutical research and leadership at Pfizer, Dr. Canter became director of the Healthcare Research Initiative at the William Davidson Institute, a non-profit research and educational institute established at the University of Michigan in 1992. Since 2008, he has led an effort to test business-based approaches to improving health care delivery in developing nations.

Dr. Canter first came to Michigan - and the property now known as NCRC - in 1986 as a vice president with Warner Lambert/Parke-Davis, which was then purchased by Pfizer in 2000. He led Pfizer's operations in Michigan as a senior vice president in Pfizer Global Research and Development from 2000 until 2008. During his pharmaceutical research career, Dr. Canter was responsible for the development of several marketed medicines including Lipitor (atorvastatin), the world's top-selling drug since 2001.

A native of England, Dr. Canter received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University, and his medical degree from the Liverpool University Medical School. After several years with the National Health Service, he joined Warner Lambert/Parke-Davis in 1984. Except for his first two years with the company in England, and three years with Pfizer in Paris in the late 1990s, he has spent his entire career in Ann Arbor. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

He has served on the boards of many local and regional organizations, from the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor Committee to the University Musical Society, and is well-connected to the region's business and academic community. These connections will be vital to his role as executive director of NCRC, which has many stakeholders across the university and in the city, region and state.