Bruce F. Scharschmidt

Bruce F. Scharschmidt (born March 6, 1946) is an American physician-scientist whose career has spanned academic, business and non-profit sectors.

[3] After completing his residency training in Internal Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 1972, Scharschmidt worked for three years as a Clinical Associate at the National Institutes of Health, where he was a founding member of the Liver Disease Research Branch of NIDDK.

His research team elucidated cellular mechanisms of bile formation, including characterization of the hepatic uptake of organic anions such as bilirubin,[6] demonstrated that hepatic update of bile acids is sodium-coupled and electrogenic,[7] identified of the presence on the basolateral hepatocyte membrane of a sodium-coupled bicarbonate transporter critical to intracellular pH regulation,[8][9] and reported of the initial evidence that hepatic bile acid secretion is mediated by an ATP-dependent transporter (later identified and shown to be mutated in progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis type 2).

[13] The NIH Consensus Conference concluded that liver transplantation was no longer experimental, which paved the way for its reimbursement and availability at centers throughout the US and worldwide.

[25] In April 2008, Scharschmidt left Novartis to join Hyperion Therapeutics, a bay area biotech startup which was in early phase development of an ammonia lowering agent for patients with urea cycle disorders (UCDs).

The Hyperion clinical trials designed under Scharschmidt have resulted in over 20 publications,[46] address not only with the performance characteristics of RAVICTI,[47] but also the use of blood and urine metabolites for drug dosing and the optimal timing and target levels for blood ammonia in patients with urea cycle disorders so as to minimize the risk and frequency of hyperammonemic crises,.

[48][49] Bruce's team at Hyperion also designed and executed a large randomized, double-blind placebo controlled trial which demonstrated that lowering ammonia in patients with cirrhosis complicated by hepatic encephalopathy (HE) decreases the risk and frequency of HE episodes.

Shasta Climb [59] to raise funds for the American Liver Foundation, organized with his son in 2009 the “Biking For Burma’s Malnourished” bike ride from Central Thailand to the Burma Border to raise money for Global Health Access Program,[60] and in 2010 co-founded the ‘Cure the Cycle Challenge’ for the National Urea Cycle Disorders Foundation [61] in which he participated as a rider from 2010 through 2015.