Dr Chas Bountra

Dr Chas Bountra has worked at Glaxo, Glaxo Wellcome and GlaxoSmithKline for nearly 19 years. In this period he played a major role in identifying in excess of 40 candidates for several target classes for progression in neurodegenerative, gastro-intestinal and pain conditions. As Vice President and Head of Biology he was involved in target identification and validation, lead optimisation and clinical POC design. Chas has played a major role in progressing Lotronex to the market for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), and for progressing three different assets into Phase III for Chronic Inflammatory pain, IBS and Alzheimer’s disease. His group were also the first to identify the potential of neurokinin NK1 receptor antagonists as anti-emetics.

Chas has held Visiting Professorships in Neuroscience and Mental Health (Imperial College), and Translational Medicine (University of Oxford). His mechanistic interests are neuro-immune interaction, neuronal-hyper excitability experimental models in volunteers and patients, and preclinical-clinical translation.

Chas is now Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), at the Structural Genomics Consortium in Oxford. Here he is working with NIH, Pharma and academic groups to identify small molecule ligands for human proteins, establishing disease association, and working with leading investigators, and the Oxford research community to progress these into the clinic.