Mark Wentland began his career in medicinal chemistry in 1970 at Sterling Winthrop Inc.  In 1971, he joined the chemistry faculty at Rensselaer as Adjunct Professor of Chemistry, teaching evening graduate-level courses.  In 1994, he left Sterling-Winthrop to become Professor of Chemistry at Rensselaer.   Following his retirement from Rensselaer at the end of 2015, he was appointed Professor Emeritus.  He held the concurrent position of Adjunct Professor in the Department of Neuroscience at Albany Medical College from 1997 to 2015. 

Samidorphan, an FDA-approved medication:  The most significant scientific achievement of Professor Wentland's medicinal chemistry career was to lead a team that discovered samidorphan.  Samidorphan, a novel high-potency mu opioid receptor antagonist, has high oral bioavailability (69%) and a long half-life (7-8 hours) in humans.  Lybalvi, a combination medicine consisting of samidorphan and olanzapine, was developed by RPI's licensing partner, Alkermes.  Lybalvi was approved by the US FDA in 2021 to treat schizophrenia and bipolar I disorder in adults. Olanzapine, an established antipsychotic agent, can cause significant weight gain. The role of samidorphan is to mitigate olanzapine-associated weight gain.