Mr Mike Brunavs
Mike Brunavs gained his chemistry degree at the University of Oxford in 1989 before immediately moving on to take a synthetic chemistry role within Eli Lilly and Company at Windlesham, Surrey, where he has been ever since. During his time at Lilly, Mike has worked briefly on rheumatoid and osteoarthritis, but his main area of expertise is in CNS disorders pursuing GPCR and ion-channel targets. Mike has experience of automated as well as conventional organic chemistry, and has an established background in parallel synthesis. He has led a number of early-phase lead generation efforts.


e-mail: mike.brunavs@lilly.com

Dr Peter Weber
e-mail: peter_weber@vrtx.com

Chairman: Dr Phillip Cowley BSc., PhD
Phill is currently Head of Chemistry at TPP Global Development. He has over 15 years industrial experience in medicinal chemistry and project leadership from early discovery up to Phase I clinical.
Phill previously held positions with Organon, Schering-Plough and Merck as Section Head, Medicinal Chemistry.



e-mail: phillip.cowley@tppgd.com

Honorary Treasurer: Dr Phil Jeffrey BSc, MSc, PhD
Phil is Director of DMPK and Medicinal Chemistry in the Immuno Inflammation CEDD at GlaxoSmithKline, Stevenage. His background is in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics and he has experience in drug discovery and early phase development in a number of therapeutic areas including the CNS, GI, pain, cardio-vascular and anti-infectives

e-mail: phillip.x.jeffrey@gsk.com

Honorary Secretary: Dr Stephen Collingwood BSc, PhD
Steve is currently a Director in the Respiratory Chemistry Department at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Horsham, West Sussex.
He has extensive experience in leading projects from lead identification to the clinic.


e-mail: steve.collingwood@novartis.com

Vice Chair: Dr Andrew J Ratcliffe
Andrew is currently Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Cellzome,. He has over 18 years industrial experience, having worked previously at Rhone Poulenc Rorer and UCB. Andrew's interests are in discovery and development of new medicines in the respiratory and inflammation arena.

e-mail: andrew.ratcliffe@cellzome.com

Dr Mohammad Alavijeh PhD MSc BSc
Mo is director of research at Pharmidex. His background is in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics with particular interest in neuropharmacokinetic. He has experience in drug discovery and early phase development in a number of therapeutic areas. He has previously held positions with Vernalis, Aventis and Rhone-Poulenc Rorer.



e-mail: mo.alavijeh@pharmidex.com

Dr Wendy Alderton PhD
Wendy is a consultant at CB1 Bio Ltd. Wendy has 15 years of experience in research and pre-clinical drug development in oncology and neuroscience therapeutic areas in the pharmaceutical industry. Wendy has previously held positions at Summit plc, GlaxoSmithKline, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, UK and PIramed Ltd



e-mail: wkalderton@btinternet.com

Mr Jack Allen
For the last 30 years Jack has gained extensive knowledge and experience of drug research at several major companies in the pharmaceutical industry. During this time he has conducted and managed various groups and projects in DMPK in a number of disease areas. Currently employed at AstraZeneca, Alderley Park, Cheshire, where he has been for the last eight years. Major roles have been as a functional project/team leader in both discovery and development DMPK. Prior to that was employed by Sanofi-Synthelabo (re: Sterling Winthrop) for 17 years at Alnwick in Northumberland, as section head of Preclinical Metabolism and then Clinical Metabolism. Finally, was employed by Hoechst-Roussel at Milton Keynes as a DMPK scientist (5 yrs) and prior to that spent ten years in academia in the area of pharmacology.

e-mail: jack.allen@astrazeneca.com

Prof Roz Anderson BSC (Hons), PhD
Roz is Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry in the School of Pharmacy at the University of Sunderland. She has over 20 years academic experience, including several years as programme leader for the MPharm programme at Sunderland. She now leads the science research programme at the University and has personal research interests in drug design and discovery, particularly psoriasis, infection, metabolic diseases and cancer, and in the detection and identification of bacteria in a clinical setting.

e-mail: roz.anderson@sunderland.ac.uk

Dr Richard Armer BSc(Hons), PhD
Richard is a medicinal chemist with experience in a wide range of therapeutic areas having worked at Pfizer, Organon, Ardana and Oxagen. He is currently CSO at Lectus Therapeutics in Cambridge.



e-mail: richard@armerr.f2s.com

Dr Katherine Brown
Kate is a lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences at Imperial College London. Her laboratory is part of the Centre for Molecular Microbiology and Infection located on the South Kensington campus. Her research principally involves structure-function studies of proteins from microbial pathogens with applications in vaccine and antimicrobial development.

e-mail: k.brown@ic.ac.uk

Dr Nessa Carey BSc, PhD
Nessa is Scientific Director for CellCentric, which specialises in next generation epigenetic therapies. She is a molecular biologist focussed on drug discovery and early development, particularly in oncology. She has previously held positions with TopoTarget and Vernalis, and before moving to industry in 2001 was a Senior Lecturer at Imperial College, London.



e-mail: nessa.carey@pfizer.com

Dr Diane Coe
Diane has been a medicinal chemist for over 12 years, she is currently working within the Respiratory and Inflammation CEDD at GlaxoSmithKline at Stevenage working on treatments for rheumatoid arthritis.

e-mail: Diane.M.Coe@gsk.com

Dr Anthony Davenport BSc, PhD, Dic,
e-mail: apd10@medschl.cam.ac.uk

Media Relations Officer: Dr Richard Davenport MSc, PhD, Post
Richard is currently a Group Leader in Medicinal chemistry at Takeda Pharmaceuticals working in the therapeutic areas of Pain and Metabolism. He has over 11years industrial experience having worked previously at Celltech/UCB, working in the area of inflammation

e-mail: rdavenport@takedacam.com

Dr Paul Vincent Fish BSc PhD
Paul is a medicinal chemist and project leader with over 17 years industrial experience in drug discovery. He has extensive experience in leading projects from target validation through to the clinical candidate nomination.
He previously held several positions within Pfizer UK, most recently as Exploratory Chemistry Leader for the Epigenetic and Regenerative Medicine Research Unit.



e-mail: paulvfish@gmail.com

Dr Neil J. Hales
Neil is senior consultant at the medicinal chemistry consultancy Allodigm, where he specialises in chemical library design and lead generation. Neil also provides expert support for pharmaceutical patent litigation and due diligence during pharmaceutical in/outlicensing negotiations. He previously worked as Principal Scientist for AstraZeneca in Cancer and Infection Research Areas at both Alderley Park in Cheshire and Gatehouse Park in Massachusetts, where he gained a broad experience of lead identification and lead optimisation across a range of different therapeutic areas.

e-mail: neilhales@allodigm.com

Mr Stuart Hex
e-mail: secretariat@smr.org.uk

Dr Ruth Lock
Ruth is currently responsible for managing the DMPK aspects of inhaled respiratory programs at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Horsham, West Sussex. She has DMPK experience in a wide range of therapeutic areas, having previously worked at Servier, Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

e-mail: ruth.lock@novartis.com

Alan Ramsay
e-mail: alan_ramsay@hotmail.co.uk

Prof Mark Searcey
Mark is Reader in Medicinal Chemistry in the School of Chemical Sciences and Pharmacy at the University of East Anglia. His research interests are in the design and synthesis of new compounds targeted at protein-DNA and protein-protein interactions, as well as in the design of prodrugs for the effective delivery of therapeutic agents

e-mail: m.searcey@uea.ac.uk

Mr Paul Smith
e-mail:

Prof Simon E. Ward MA PhD
Simon Ward holds the chair in medicinal chemistry at the University of Sussex and is the director of the translational drug discovery group. His research group, working in close collaboration with biologists across oncology and neurosciences and the Brighton and Sussex Medical School is working on a number of exploratory drug discovery programmes. Prior to taking up his position in Sussex, Simon previously worked for 15 years as a medicinal chemist and project leader in industry (GlaxoSmithKline, Knoll, Cerebrus, Chiroscience) leading multiple projects from early discovery to early clinical phases.



e-mail: simon.ward@sussex.ac.uk