Work with the Parkinson's Virtual Biotech

Alan Naylor PhD

Following a long career culminating as Vice President and Director of Medicinal Chemistry at GSK, Alan is now an independent drug discovery consultant. He is a co-inventor of Serevent (salmeterol), a marketed drug for use in asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). As a consultant, Alan has provided scientific and strategic advice to a range of academic and industrial clients and has been a member of several scientific advisory boards including membership of Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK committees. He is also a co-founder and adviser to Pathios Therapeutics Ltd., an Oxford-based start-up focused on immunooncology.

Michael Rowley PhD

Mike has 35 years of drug discovery experience and has held senior medicinal chemistry leadership positions at Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD) in the UK, Italy and Switzerland, and at AstraZeneca in Sweden. He led teams which discovered 3 marketed drugs (Isentress, Zapatier, Zejula), has been a member of governance bodies in large pharma, and has multiple experiences with CNS drug discovery projects. For the past 5 years he has consulted with biotech companies, universities and VC funds. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, a Hero of the American Chemical Society and a member of the ACS Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame. He is an author on over 100 peer reviewed publications and inventor on over 40 patent applications.
 

John Davis PhD

John Davis is Professor of Pharmaceutical Discovery in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, and a principal investigator within the Centre for Medicines Discovery.  As director of business development for the Alzheimer’s Research UK Drug Discovery Alliance (ARUK DDA), John is focused on building partnerships that capitalise on the strengths of the 3 drug discovery institutes within the ARUK DDA. In 2015, John joined the University of Oxford to establish the ARUK Oxford Drug Discovery Institute. The institute has developed a portfolio of early drug discovery programmes for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, with an emphasis on genetically validated targets, and has forged multiple industrial alliances to accelerate project progression. John has 30 years of drug discovery expertise and has helped steer a number of drug candidates into development. 
 

Professor Manfred Auer

Following his PhD at the MPI for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Manfred spent 20 years at Novartis in which he progressed from Labhead to worldwide Executive Director for Innovative Screening Technologies in 2004. In 2009 he made was Professor for Chemical and Translational Biology at the University of Edinburgh, UK, where he stayed for 15 years. Manfred’s expertise lies in the development and application of drug discovery technologies with focus on computational and experimental quantitative biology. Manfred’s current work roles include memberships of boards of Directors and Advisory Panels, and consulting for biotech companies, charitable organisations and universities.

Ann Hayes PhD

Following her PhD, Ann spent 22 years at GSK and was appointed Therapeutic Director for CNS diseases in Drug Discovery in 1995. In 2001, Ann set up as an independent consultant, and has since co-founded 3 companies and sat on the board of several others.  She consults for small companies in CNS diseases and Drug Discovery, alongside advising charitable organisations including Alzheimer's Research UK.
 

Damian Crowther PhD FRCP

Having trained in clinical neurology in Oxford, Nottingham and Cambridge, Damian then lead a neuroscience research group at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research and Department of Genetics, University of Cambridge. Damian moved to industry in 2015, becoming the Director and Head of Early R&D with AstraZeneca Neuroscience.  He is Entrepreneur in Residence at Cambridge Innovation Capital and Venture Partner at SV’s Dementia Discovery Fund.

Chris Swain

Chris founded Cambridge MedChem Consulting in May 2006, where he remains Director. Prior to that he spent 20 years at Merck where he was a Senior Director responsible for a medicinal chemistry and the computational chemistry research group, He was the Chemistry Director of the project team that discovered and developed the NK1 antagonist Emend. His current activities include, providing medicinal chemistry and computational chemistry support to small and mid-cap sized Pharma companies, academic groups and start-ups. Several of these projects have resulted in molecules undergoing clinical studies. Chris has over 100 peer reviewed publications.