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# Ex-FDAer Sherman Joins Aptinyx Board
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/ex-fdaer-sherman-joins-aptinyx-board/
- Published: 2019-09-04T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-15T01:47:42.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Drugs, #legacy-id-D5144918

Former FDA principal deputy commissioner **Rachel Sherman** has been appointed to Aptinyx’s board of directors. The clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company is developing therapies for treating brain and nervous system disorders.

“The company’s NMDA receptor platform, rooted in novel chemistry and a unique mechanism for modulation of a critical regulator of brain and nervous system function, has yielded a product pipeline with significant therapeutic potential to help patients without satisfactory options,” Sherman says. “CNS is an area starved for innovation, marked by an opioid crisis that is devastating the U.S., and in which new therapeutic options are desperately needed.”

Sherman retired in January after almost 30 years at FDA. She started her FDA career in 1989 and helped usher in HIV drugs during the AIDS crisis. In 2005, she moved to FDA’s Office of the Commissioner as associate commissioner for clinical programs and directed the agency’s Critical Path Initiative. In 2009, she returned to CDER to serve as associate Center director for medical policy and director of the Office of Medical Policy**.** In 2015 and after a brief retirement, Sherman was asked to return to lead the Office of Medical Products and Tobacco.  

Sherman was replaced by former Flatiron Health chief medical officer **Amy Abernethy**.