Prof John Posner

Professor Posner qualified in pharmacology and medicine at King’s College London (KCL) and King’s College Hospital (KCH) and completed a residency in Internal Medicine in Beer Sheva, Israel. He entered the pharmaceutical industry in the 1980s, served as Head of Clinical Pharmacology for The Wellcome Foundation for 10 years and subsequently as a Director of Clinical Pharmacology at GlaxoWellcome. For many years John has worked as an independent consultant in pharmaceutical medicine, assisting companies with their exploratory clinical development programmes across many therapeutic areas. He also has considerable experience in writing regulatory submissions worldwide. John is a Visiting Professor at KCL with extensive teaching commitments. He is a Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society, has published widely and served for many years on the editorial board of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Dr Duncan McHale

Dr Duncan McHale is a clinician scientist and early drug development specialist with over 20 years’ industry experience. He co-founded Weatherden and helps lead the strategic direction of the company, whilst also actively supporting clients with his clinical development expertise. He is Chief Medical Officer at Evelo Biosciences and a Venture Partner at SV Health Investors. With previous roles as Vice President and Head of Global Exploratory Development at UCB, Vice President for Personalised Healthcare and Biomarkers at AstraZeneca, and European Head of Translational and Molecular Medicine at Pfizer, he has over 20 years’ experience working across pharmacogenetics, early development and personalised medicine across multiple therapeutic areas. Duncan completed his PhD in genetics at the University of Leeds and was Visiting Professor in Clinical and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool. Previously Chairman of the EFPIA pharmacogenomics working group, Duncan has sat on multiple Medical Research Council panels and was the Innovative Medicine Initiative’s lead on Molecular Taxonomy of Human Disease.

Dr Tony Lockett

Dr Lockett is a visiting lecturer of the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine at King’s College London. He has a PhD in economics from St Andrews University and an MBA from Henley Management College. Following his PhD he became head of intranslational medicine in Covance, before joining an NIH spinout in vaccines and nanotechnology. In 2009 he joined HVivo as Chief Medical Officer - a respiratory specialist CRO in London. Dr Lockett is a director of a couple of SMEs in the area of antimicrobial research. Both of the companies he is involved in are looking at the role of biofilm penetration in overcoming anti-microbial resistance. In this role he is actively involved in the pricing and development of genomic therapy for gene therapy in AMR and vaccines – such as phage therapy.  He also has an active research interest in the ethics of global health issues including genomic therapy, where he is actively researching the role of justice in informed consent to research. He retains an active consultancy in anti-infective research and has been advising companies in clinical development strategies for the COVID-19 outbreak.

Dr Arseniy Lavrov

Dr Arseniy Lavrov, MD, PhD, FFPM is a board-certified neurologist and a pharmaceutical physician with 9 years of clinical and academia experience. He completed a PhD research in vascular dementia and vascular cognitive impairment. Dr Lavrov has a further 15 years of pharmaceutical industry experience with a focus on drug development in Neurosciences, across all phases of development from discovery to post approval. His experience involves translational, clinical development and marketing authorization activities of gene therapies for neurological diseases. His main areas of interest also include: rare neurological diseases; movement disorders; dementias and cognitive impairment. Dr Lavrov has also an interest and experience in digital biomarkers and endpoints. Previously Head Unit Physician and Clinical Development Head at Neurosciences Therapy Area Unit at GSK, Dr Lavrov is currently leading EMEA Clinical Development at Novartis Gene Therapies.