Dr. Sheares, former CEO of Reliant Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Prior to joining Reliant, Dr. Sheares spent over 19 years at Merck & Co., Inc., a global pharmaceutical company.
From 2001 to 2006, he served as President of the U.S. Human Health division of Merck, where he had commercial responsibility for its portfolio of prescription medicines for the treatment of chronic and acute diseases in the United States.
During his tenure as President, Dr. Sheares was a member of Merck's Management Committee, which was responsible for formulating global business strategies, operations management and the development and implementation of corporate policies. Prior to this position, Dr. Sheares served as Vice President, Hospital Marketing and Sales for U.S. Human Health.
Dr. Sheares is a member of the board of directors of Honeywell International, a diversified technology and manufacturing company. He is also a director of The Progressive Corporation, Covance, Inc.,Henry Schein, Inc., and IMS Health, Inc. He also serves on the board of trustees of Spelman College, and is a member of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the Abington Friends School Committee, the Scientific Advisory Council for Montclair State University, and the Executive Leadership Council. He is the former chair of the board of directors of the National Pharmaceutical Council, which focuses on broadly communicating the economic, clinical and societal value of pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Sheares attended public schools before attending Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a degree in chemistry. He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Purdue University and was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow and a Lucille P. Markey Scholar at the Center for Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Fortune Magazine named him one of their top draft picks to go all the way to the top.
