Distinguished Professor Michael Jung, UCLA’s Walter and Shirley Wang Chair in Medicinal Drug Discovery, has received the University of California Regents Innovation Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award, recognizing his decades of research and innovation in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery.
The Regents Innovation Awards recognize researchers, entrepreneurs, and other members of the UC community whose work demonstrates the wide-ranging impact of innovation across the University of California. Specifically, the Innovation Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes a faculty member with a distinguished career of sustained innovation, visionary research, and enduring contributions that have enriched lives across generations.
“We are deeply proud of Mike and grateful for all he has brought to our department, our university, and so many lives far beyond this institution,” said UCLA Chemistry & Biochemistry Department Chair Professor Alex Spokoyny.
Jung’s most widely recognized contributions include his work developing new treatments for prostate cancer. In collaboration with physician-scientist Charles Sawyers, Jung designed and synthesized enzalutamide (Xtandi) and apalutamide (Erleada), which were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2012 and 2018, respectively. The drugs block the androgen receptor, a protein that plays a key role in the growth of prostate cancer, and have been used to treat more than one million men with both advanced and early-stage disease.
UCLA received more than $1.14 billion from the sale of patent rights to Xtandi, and royalties from Jung’s discoveries continue to support research and fellowships at UCLA.
In 2017, Jung and his wife, Alice, endowed the Michael and Alice Jung Chair in Medicinal Chemistry and Drug Discovery to help UCLA recruit and support future scientists and educators. Professor Stuart Conway currently holds the Jung Chair.
His research program continues to advance potential new treatments. Four additional drug candidates are moving through clinical development, including those for glioblastoma, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, optic neuritis, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig’s disease). Another product, PP405 – developed by Pelage Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company Jung co-founded alongside UCLA colleagues William Lowry and Heather Christofk – is designed to reactivate dormant hair follicle stem cells to treat hair loss and has completed Phase 2 clinical trials.
Jung’s contributions extend beyond his laboratory research. He has been an inventor on more than 425 patents, published more than 375 scientific articles and given more than 680 lectures on his research. He has also co-founded 14 biotechnology companies and helped advance additional drug candidates into clinical trials.
He has also played a role in promoting entrepreneurship and technology transfer at UCLA. As Associate Dean for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, he helped run the Physical Sciences Entrepreneurship and Innovation Fund (PSEIF), which provided grants of up to $100,000 to help researchers move patented discoveries toward startups or licensing. The funds for this program came largely from the funds his patents brought to UCLA.
Jung’s other honors include the 2026 Gertrude Elion Medicinal Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society Division of Medicinal Chemistry, the 2025 National Academy of Sciences Award for Chemistry in Service to Society, and the 2025 Edward E. Smissman Award from the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry. In 2024, he was inducted into the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame. Earlier honors include the 2022 IUPAC-Richter Prize in Medicinal Chemistry and the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research Award for Outstanding Achievement in Chemistry in Cancer Research.
