[5][6] Needleman was a professor in and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology, Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, as well as former chief scientist and head of R&D at Monsanto/Searle/Pharmacia.

In the pharmaceutical industry, he discovered and developed widely used therapeutics in arthritis (COX-2 inhibitors: Celebrex®, Bextra®, Parecoxib), heart failure (Eplerenone), and oncology (Sutent®).

[9] Immediately thereafter, he joined Washington University School of Medicine as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pharmacology, working with Ed Hunter, Ph.D., and Oliver Lowry, M.D., Ph.D.[10] Needleman has a long and distinguished scientific career that encompasses both academic research as well as pharmaceutical drug development.

Widely recognized for his research on hypertension, he and his colleagues discovered the first angiotensin antagonist and atrial natriuretic factor, the hormone that allows the heart to communicate with the kidneys to modulate salt and water metabolism and blood pressure.

Both the medical school and Monsanto agreed that he could keep his lab and continue his basic research, which enabled his family to stay in St. Louis and still be loosely attached to WashU.

After joining Monsanto, Dr. Needleman was able to connect his earlier lab discovery of COX-2, a variation of the cyclooxygenase enzyme responsible for inflammation and pain in arthritis patients.

Needleman briefly returned to the School of Medicine in 2004, when he was named associate dean and assisted with BioMed 21, the university’s innovative research initiative designed to speed scientific discovery and to rapidly apply breakthroughs to patient care.

[15] Dr. Needleman briefly served on the board of Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc, a privately held company which he left when it was merged with Discovery Partners in 2006.

[12][13] He received the NAS Award for the Industrial Application of Science in 2005 for his work on "metabolism of arachidonic acid in physiology and pathophysiology, which generates prostacyclin and thromboxane.

[23] The program aims to advance promising drug development into early clinical trials and help the university attract and retain exceptional faculty.

The SINC Center aims to develop technologies to decrease the use of nitrogen fertilizer, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

[24][25][26] In 2016, Philip and Sima Needleman endowed the Philip and Sima K. Needleman Endowed Doctoral Fellowship in Plant Conservation Genetics to the Missouri Botanical Garden to support training of a St. Louis University doctoral student working in the field of plant conservation genetics.