MICHAEL PALFREYMAN

Consultant, Pharmaceutical R&D

Michael G. Palfreyman is a seasoned leader in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries with over 35 years experience. He is Head, Translational R&D at ChemDiv, Inc. and is responsible for the integration of drug development and clinical studies.

Since 2009 Michael is Senior Scientific Advisor, Interim President & CEO, Vitruvean, Inc., a drug discovery technology company being spun out from EnVivo Pharmaceuticals. In addition, Michael is Executive Program Director and Senior Scientific Advisor to EnVivo Pharmaceuticals. Previously, Michael was VP, Program Management & Product Development at EnVivo Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for the late stage discovery and preclinical development of two CNS drugs now demonstrating efficacy in clinical testing.

In 2003, he co-founded NOVACE Corporation, a network of entrepreneurs providing scientific, and strategic management solutions to the biotechnology industry and venture capital community. In this capacity he worked closely with Investors and Biotechnology Companies to bring products from discovery through to the value point of clinical validation.

Michael was Founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Psychiatric Genomics, a biotechnology company developing genome-based approaches to drug discovery for the treatment of Mental Illness.
From 1994-2000 he was Senior Vice President of Research & Development at Scriptgen (Anadys) Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company specializing in genomic-based drug discovery in infectious diseases.

Before joining Scriptgen, Michael held a number of executive positions at Marion Merrell Dow Research Institute (Sanofi-Aventis), including Head of CNS Research, Director of Pharmacological Sciences, Co-Chair Pipeline Evaluation Team, Vice President Global Biological and Scientific Affairs, Vice President Research, North America and Member of the Research & Development Executive Management Team. In addition to overseeing research programs in Psychiatric, Neurological, Cardiovascular, Cancer, Infectious, Metabolic and Respiratory Disorders, Dr. Palfreyman’s own research included discovery and development of a number of psychotherapeutic compounds for treatment of psychosis, depression, stroke, epilepsy, emesis, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases. Many of these compounds have entered clinical development and a number have reached the marketplace.

From 1970 to 1975 Michael was Head of Biochemical Pharmacology at Beecham Pharmaceuticals (GlaxoSmithKline) where he pioneered rational biochemical approaches to drug discovery with three compounds demonstrating clinical effectiveness.

Michael received his B.Pharm, MRPharmS, Ph.D. and D.Sc. from the University of Nottingham in pharmacy, neuroscience and rational drug design of CNS active drugs, respectively. He has been an invited speaker and chairperson for a number of international and national conferences, is co-inventor on 35 issued US patents, 3 pending patents and co-author of over 150 scientific articles and book chapters.