Chas Bountra

Professor Bountra is Pro-Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Professor of Translational Medicine at the University of Oxford. He is Director of the Centre for Medicines Discovery in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine and Associate Member of the Department of Pharmacology. As Director of SGC-Oxford (2008 – mid 2020), Professor Bountra established a leading research group in human protein structural biology and epigenetics chemical biology. Prior to coming back to Oxford in 2008, Chas was Vice President and Head of Biology at GlaxoSmithKline. He was involved in the identification of >40 clinical candidates for many gastro-intestinal, inflammatory and neuro-psychiatric diseases. More than 20 of these molecules progressed into patient studies and >5 of these delivered successful “Proof of Concept” data and hence progressed into late stage development. He was involved in the launch and development of the first treatment for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (Alosetron) and was the first to show that neurokinin NK1 antagonists are anti-emetic in preclinical and clinical studies.