executive management

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Bharatt Chowrira, Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Chowrira, who joined Addex in 2011, has a strong track record in the biopharmaceutical industry with over 17-years of experience, combining a unique blend of research, licensing, corporate development, operations and legal expertise. Most recently, Dr. Chowrira was the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Nektar Therapeutics, a NASDAQ-traded U.S. biopharmaceutical company. At Nektar he led a team that established several revenue-generating strategic alliances. He also led efforts to streamline, realign and integrate operations across research, manufacturing, business development, marketing and multiple R&D sites.  Dr. Chowrira previously served as Executive Director, Worldwide Licensing & External Research at Merck & Co., Inc. Prior to that, he was a key member of the executive management team that restructured and re-launched Sirna Therapeutics, a development-stage biopharmaceutical firm focused on the discovery and development of RNAi-based drugs, which was acquired by Merck & Co., Inc. He has a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from the University of Vermont and a law degree (J.D.) from the College of Law at the University of Denver. Dr. Chowrira is a registered U.S. patent attorney and a licensed member of the Colorado Bar Association. Dr Chowrira also serves on the Board of Traversa Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company based in California.

Tim Dyer, Chief Financial Officer
Since co-founding Addex in 2002, Mr. Dyer has overseen growth of the organization to over 100 staff and facilitated the building of the allosteric modulator discovery and development platform, which is focused on three therapeutic areas. In this time, the company completed three rounds of venture financing, an IPO and a PIPE, totaling CHF263 million raised. Addex has advanced internally discovered allosteric modulators into clinical testing and signed drug development partnerships with Merck & Co., Inc. and Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary. Prior to joining Addex Mr. Dyer spent 10 years with Price Waterhouse & PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in the UK, Ex-Soviet Union and Switzerland as part of the audit and business advisory group. Mr Dyer has extensive experience in finance and the building of start-up companies. He is a UK Chartered Accountant and holds a BSc(Hons) in Biochemistry and Pharmacology from the University of Southampton.

Charlotte Keywood, Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Keywood, who was a consultant for Addex from inception, formally joined in 2004. She has overseen Addex medical and regulatory activities, which includes advancing an internally discovered allosteric modulator product through Phase IIb clinical testing. Dr. Keywood has 20 years of experience in drug development and medical marketing across a broad range of therapeutic areas. During this time she has worked in the U.S. and Europe and has been responsible for all stages of clinical development, including pre- and post-registration and pharmacovigilance activities. Dr. Keywood, acting as a consultant, served from 2001 to 2003 as Medical Director for Axovan, a Swiss biotech company that was acquired by Actelion in 2003. From 1996 to 2001 she was Medical Director at CNS company Vernalis, where she helped bring a new migraine drug, Frova frovatriptan, to the market. From 1991 to 1996 she was Medical Director of the European subsidiary of U.S. biotechnology company Gensia. Dr Keywood is a cardiologist who completed her post-graduate training at St Thomas’ Hospital, London.

Sonia Poli, Head of Non-Clinical Development & Interim Head of CNS
Dr. Poli, who joined Addex in 2004, has broad expertise in drug development from lead generation through to entry in man. At Addex she has overseen the transition of multiple products from discovery projects to clinical development programs. She worked from 1997 to 2004 in the drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK) area at Roche, where she was a key inventor and global head of a multidimensional optimization approach for drug discovery and development. As a result, she played an important role in selecting clinical candidates in central nervous system (CNS) indications, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, bi-polar disorders and anxiety. Dr. Poli obtained her degree and doctorate in Industrial Chemistry at the University of Milan in 1993 and completed a post doctoral fellowship at the CNRS, in Paris, in the group of Prof. D. Mansuy in 1997. Dr. Poli is co-author of more than 25 research publications and patents.

Laurent Galibert, Head of Metabolism & Inflammation
Dr. Galibert joined Addex in 2008 and has focused on adapting the allosteric modulation discovery platform for use with clinically validated targets in inflammation. From early 2005 to 2008, he was at Merck Serono, where he was senior staff scientist. From 1996-2005 he held successive research positions at Immunex Corp. (acquired by Amgen Inc.) and Amgen, where he cloned the receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa B ligand (RANKL) and co-authored the initial patent leading to the development of Amgen’s denosumab, a monoclonal antibody against RANKL, which was recently approved for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. From 1991-1995 Dr. Galibert was a PhD fellow at Schering-Plough. He received a PhD in biological engineering from the Centre Universitaire des Sciences et Techniques in Clermont-Ferrand, France in 1996. Dr. Galibert is coauthor of 26 research publications and 8 patents.

Jean-Philippe Rocher, Head of Core Chemistry
Dr. Rocher has been working with Addex since inception and established the company’s chemistry department and allosteric modulator chemical library. He is a medicinal chemist who has discovered several pre-clinical and clinical candidates for CNS and inflammatory diseases and cancer over the course of his career. He was director of chemistry at Devgen NV, Gent, Belgium from 2001 to 2002. From 1997 to 2001, Dr. Rocher was senior research scientist for GlaxoSmithKline KK in Tsukuba, Japan, where he played a key role in implementing a modern drug discovery process and in improving communication with the U.K. and U.S. sites. From 1995 to 1997 he was the first ever “guest scientist” at Mitsubishi Pharma in Yokohama, Japan. Prior to that Dr. Rocher worked for contract research company Battelle, in Geneva, where he initiated neuropharmacology chemistry research programs. He obtained his PhD at the Faculty of Pharmacy of Lyon, France in 1987 and started his career as a research scientist in the dermatology research centre of Galderma at Sophia-Antipolis, France. He holds a Doctorate in Pharmacy and took additional courses at the School of Chemistry in Lyon. Dr. Rocher is co-author of more than 25 research publications and patents.

Robert Lütjens, Head of Core Biology
Dr. Lütjens has worked with Addex since inception and established the Company’s biology labs. He has been responsible for assay development for discovery and high throughput screening, which became the basis for the biological tools that have been integrated into the multi-disciplinary discovery and development platform. Dr. Lütjens has participated in the successful discovery collaborations with Johnson & Johnson and Merck & Co., Inc. Prior to that he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Neuropharmacology at the Scripps Research Institute, in La Jolla, CA. Dr Lütjens obtained his master’s degree in Biology at the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research and went on to complete a Biology PhD thesis at the Glaxo Institute for Molecular Biology in Geneva and the Institute for Cellular Biology and Morphology in Lausanne. Dr. Lütjens is co-author of more than 10 peer-reviewed publications and coinventor on more than 10 patents.

Tatiana Pont Carteret, Head of Human Resources
Mrs. Pont Carteret joined Addex in late 2008 and has focused on further developing the Group’s human resources function. After an initial career in private banking, Mrs. Pont Carteret gained 12 years of international experience across a broad range of human resources specialties. She held various senior HR positions with: Lloyds TSB Bank (2006-2008); Union Bancaire Privée (2005-2006); Capital International (2001-2004); DHL Switzerland (1997-2001). Mrs. Pont Carteret holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Geneva.

Chris Maggos, Business Development & Communication
Mr. Maggos, who joined Addex in 2007, has worked as a journalist, an investor in public equity and a neurobiologist. He was Senior Writer for BioCentury, a biotechnology trade publication, from 2001 to 2007. He worked from 1997 to 2000 as an Associate at Casdin Capital Partners (later known as Cooper Hill Partners) where he helped manage a USD350 million biotech hedge fund in New York City. Prior to that, from 1993 to 1997, Mr. Maggos performed research on the molecular neurobiology of drug abuse at The Rockefeller University, coauthoring 11 scientific publications. He received a BA in English Literature from Yale University in 1993.