Our Partners

Rana Al-Hallaq, PhD is Executive Director and Partner at Pfizer Ventures.

Rana leverages her preclinical, clinical, and business development experience to assess, invest in, and manage equity investments for Pfizer Ventures. She currently has responsibility for Pfizer’s investments in Nucleome Therapeutics (Oxford, UK), ReCode Therapeutics (Menlo Park, CA; Dallas, TX), Vivet Therapeutics (Paris, France), Mitokinin, Inc. (San Francisco, CA), Autifony Therapeutics Ltd. (Stevenage, UK), RefleXion Medical (Hayward, CA), Montis (Leuven, Belgium), Biograph55 (San Francisco, CA), Jnana Therapeutics (Boston, MA), Arkuda (Cambridge, MA), and the Dementia Discovery Fund (London, UK) among others. Prior to her current role, Rana was a Transactionalist in Worldwide Business Development at Pfizer where she was responsible for negotiating and transacting licenses, acquisitions, and partnerships across therapeutic areas. Rana joined Pfizer in 2015 as an Early Candidate Clinical Lead where she advised early clinical programs in CNS to ensure alignment with business strategies. Prior to joining Pfizer, she held roles at Allergan (formerly Actavis, formerly Forest Laboratories), first in Clinical Development Psychiatry as scientific and operational lead on Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies investigating novel treatments for Major Depressive Disorder and schizophrenia, and later in Business Development where she assessed and executed on a number of acquisitions and licenses across therapeutic areas. She began her training as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health. Rana graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in Biology from Hamilton College and holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Georgetown University Medical Center.

Niranjan Bose is the Managing Director for Health & Life Sciences at Gates Ventures, LLC, where he also serves as a Health & Life Sciences Advisor to Mr. Bill Gates. Gates Ventures' programmatic investments in the Alzheimer’s field include the AD Diagnostics Accelerator, Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF), EQT Dementia Fund, AD Data Initiative and the European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases (EPND).

Prior to joining Gates Ventures in 2014, he was the Chief of Staff to the President of the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. During his tenure there, he was responsible for managing a portfolio of vaccine investments focused on pediatric diarrheal and respiratory diseases. This work included leading the Gates Foundation’s cholera and rotavirus vaccine strategies.

Before that, Niranjan worked for the management consulting firm Strategic Decisions Group (and SDG Life Sciences), where his engagements with pharma and biotech clients drove strategy development, deal structuring, and portfolio management.

Niranjan holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine, an M.S. in Biological Sciences and a B.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, in Pilani, India. He also holds a Business Bridge Diploma from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Professor Bountra is Chief Scientist at the Structural Genetics Consortium, Professor of Translational Medicine in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine and Associate Member of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford. He is also a Visiting Professor in Neuroscience and Mental Health at Imperial College, London.

Chas has a wealth of both academic and industry experience. As Vice President and Head of Biology at GlaxoSmithKline, he was involved in the identification of more than clinical candidates for many gastro-intestinal, inflammatory and neuro-psychiatric diseases. More than 20 of these molecules progressed into patient studies, and several had successful “Proof of Concept” data and hence progressed into late stage development. He was involved in the launch and development of the first treatment for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (Alosetron) and was the first to show that neurokinin NK1 antagonists are anti-emetic in preclinical and clinical studies.

Prof Bountra’s current research is aimed at determining the 3D X ray structures of novel proteins, generating novel small molecule inhibitors, using these to dissect disease networks and hence identifying new targets for drug discovery. He is an advocate for pre-competitive science, for example the Structural Genetics Consortium publishes all findings immediately, works closely with over 100 academic labs across the world and 8 pharmaceutical companies, and shares all reagents and expertise freely. Prof Bountra works closely with colleagues in Oxford to build major programmes in rare diseases and in Alzheimer’s Disease, to create a “BioEscalator” for the rapid translation of SGC science.

Prof Bountra has given hundreds of invited lectures and in 2012 was voted one of the “top innovators in the industry”. He is an invited expert on several government and charitable research funding bodies, and an advisor for many academic, biotech and pharma drug discovery programmes.

Ceri Davies is head of global CNS drug discovery at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd which is responsible for discovering and developing new CNS medicines up to clinical proof of efficacy.

Ceri holds a BSc and PhD from the University of Bristol and has experience of running an independent academic laboratory at the University of Edinburgh before he left academia 18 years ago to join the pharmaceutical industry at Organon Laboratories in Scotland. Since then he has worked at SmithKline Beecham and GlaxoSmithKline in the UK, Italy and Singapore where he has led a number of research departments responsible for both preclinical and clinical drug discovery projects covering a range of psychiatric and neurological disorders.

He is a visiting Honorary Professor in Neuroscience and Biomedical Systems at The University of Glasgow and has served as a member of both the Medical Research Council and The Wellcome Trust Neuroscience and Mental Health and Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience Boards. He has published over 80 full papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and has been awarded AJ Clark and Novartis Prizes by the British Pharmacological Society in recognition of his pharmacological expertise.

Fiona Elwood, Ph.D., VP and Neurodegeneration Disease Area Stronghold (DAS) Leader at Janssen, the pharmaceutical companies of J&J.

Fiona has extensive experience in neuroscience and neurodegenerative research and development, a passion for bringing relief to patients and their caregivers, and dedication to scientific excellence and exceptional teamwork. She brings deep expertise in molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration, drug discovery and development. In her current role as the neurodegeneration disease area stronghold leader at Janssen, she is responsible for the scientific strategy of the neurodegeneration portfolio from target selection through Phase III clinical development. Previously, she was the Interim Global Head of Neuroscience and Head of Neurodegeneration at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, responsible for a portfolio of drug discovery programs. Before Novartis, she spent nearly 10 years at Merck Research Laboratories in positions of increasing responsibility in both neuroscience and immunology therapeutic areas.

Fiona received her doctorate in Neuroscience from the University of London, UK where she developed novel mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease and Familial British Dementia, and subsequently completed her postdoctoral work on autophagy in Alzheimer’s disease at Stanford University.

Fiona received her doctorate in Neuroscience from the University of London, UK where she developed novel mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease and Familial British Dementia, and subsequently completed her postdoctoral work on autophagy in Alzheimer’s disease at Stanford University.

Richard Hargreaves holds a BSc and Ph.D. from Chelsea/Kings College, London University UK. He is currently Senior VP Head of the Neuroscience Thematic Research Center at Bristol Myers Squibb. Richard has previously held leadership positions in neuroscience and imaging at Celgene, Biogen and Merck Research Laboratories. Richard has led teams that have advanced numerous novel CNS PET imaging agents and neuroscience drug candidates to the clinic and registration. He has published >230 journal articles, is an honorary industry visiting Professor in Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oxford UK, a fellow of the British Pharmacological Society and has been recognized by awards from the ASPCT for his work on CNS discovery imaging, by the British Pharmacological Society with the Sir James Black Award for Drug Discovery, by BMS with the Jack Grebb award for excellence in Research and Development Leadership.

Michael Hutton joined Lilly as Chief Scientific Officer for Neurodegenerative Disease in 2009 and was appointed UK Site Scientific Leader in 2012. He is based at Erl Wood and leads drug discovery for Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease and fronto-temporal dementia.

Prior to joining Lilly, Dr Hutton worked at Merck and at the Mayo Clinic Jacksonville (FL, USA) as Professor of Neuroscience. During his time at Mayo, Dr Hutton’s team played a major role in determining the causes of fronto-temporal dementia with the discovery of mutations in tau and progranulin and the mechanism by which these lead to neurodegeneration.

Susan Kohlhaas is Executive Director of Research and Partnerships at Alzheimer’s Research UK where she oversees the charity’s research strategy and programme, including strategic initiatives on developing new treatment targets, early detection and supporting research infrastructure. She has a PhD in cancer biology from the University of Leicester and completed postdoctoral work in the field of immunology at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge.

Susan’s previous roles include work in the area of multiple sclerosis, as Executive Director of Research and External Affairs at the MS Society where she worked as part of a global initiatives on progressive MS, developed and implemented plans for a large-scale clinical trials programme and worked to ensure innovations in research were implemented into clinical practise.

John Lyons is Senior Vice President of Translational Research with responsibility for the development of translational strategies for Astex oncology programmes at Astex.

John joined Astex as Director of Oncology in October 2003 and was named Senior Vice President of Translational Research in 2017. He has 30 years of experience in cancer biology, preclinical and clinical development and joined Astex from SuperGen Inc., where, as Senior Director of Scientific Development, he was responsible for the development of Dacogen™ approved for MDS, a form of leukemia.

Prior to this, he spent 8 years at Onyx Pharmaceuticals where he led the team that discovered Nexavar™, a signal transduction inhibitor approved in the US and Europe for renal cell carcinoma and hepatocellular carcinoma and Stivarga™ a multi kinase inhibitor approved for gastro-intestinal stromal tumours and colorectal cancers. Earlier in his career he worked as a post-doc at Cetus Corporation in Emeryville, California, USA. Dr Lyons is a member of AACR and ASCO. He obtained his PhD in 1989 from the University of Ulm, Germany. He has over 60 peer reviewed publications and 20 company related patents.

Alastair D. Reith is Senior Scientific Director, Novel Human Genetics Research Unit, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals R&D. Dr. Reith has over 30 years’ experience in kinase signalling drug discovery & signalling research – gained in pharmaceutical industry, charitable, and academic research sectors in UK, China and North America.

Alastair has extensive experience in leading drug discovery & development programs for neurodegenerative diseases and forging a network of successful long-term external alliances with academic collaborators, platform technology partners and not-for-profit organisations that has yielded scientific breakthroughs to enable & expedite identification of clinical candidate compounds and their progression to clinical trials.

He has also served on both Institute and grant review panels for BBSRC, as well as review panels & expert advisory groups for a range of Research funding organisations in the charitable sector and UK Research Excellence Framework. Prior to joining GSK, he was a NATO postdoctoral fellow at Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, and Assistant Member at Ludwig Institute, University College London. Alastair received his PhD (Biochemistry) from Imperial College London.