John Atack

John is the Founder and Chief Translational Officer of Draig Therapeutics as well as Professor in Translational Drug Discovery and Director of the Medicines Institute (MDI) at Cardiff University.

John is a leader and recognized expert in GABAA receptor biology and drug discovery. He has over 180 publications and has led projects all the way from target identification/target validation through to clinical development and Phase 2a clinical proof-of-concept studies. He has a particular interest in the use of methods to demonstrate target engagement and/or the functional consequences of target engagement in humans.

John has extensive (>25 years) experience in neuroscience drug discovery at the Merck Sharp & Dohme Neuroscience Research Centre in Harlow, UK and then with Janssen Pharmaceuticals (now Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine). He has worked on a range of CNS disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, cognitive impairment and addiction. As Director of the MDI at Cardiff University he built a portfolio of drug discovery and clinical development projects that formed the basis of Draig’s innovative pipeline.

John received a BSc in Physiology and a PhD in neurochemical pathology from the University of Newcastle.