- DEMENTIA RESEARCHER - https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk -

Profile – Dr Declan Jones

Name:

Dr Declan Jones

Job Title:

Vice President, Neuroscience External Innovation

Place of work / study:

Johnson & Johnson Innovation Centre in London

Area of Research:

Drug discovery and development for neurodegeneration and mood disorders (including enabling approaches such as biomarkers and diagnostics).

How is your work funded:

Via Janssen Pharmaceuticals (part of Johnson & Johnson), but also via public private partnerships co-funded by organisations such as the Wellcome Trust, MRC, ARUK, Alzheimer’s Society etc.

Tell us a little about yourself:

I am a psychopharmacologist by training and I have been associated with the Pharmaceutical industry for the whole of my career, with the exception of one post-doc at Emory University, ever since my student days (via a sandwich degree placement at Organon Laboratories, and a PhD CASE Award part funded by Glaxo and the BBSRC). In my current role, I look for Neuroscience therapeutic opportunities across Europe and Asia-Pacific, working with academic scientists, biotech companies, and VC firms who want to invest in Neuroscience companies. Prior to this, I spent nearly 19 years at GSK in internal & external innovation in drug discovery & development.

I am a big fan of the public and private sectors working together to tackle dementia. Amongst other activities, I am on the Executive Team for the Dementias Platform UK and the Wellcome Trust co-funded Neuroinflammation in Mood & Alzheimer’s (NIMA) Consortium, we are members of the ARUK Dementia Consortium and collaborate on several projects within the ARUK Drug Discovery Alliance, and I am on the Research Strategy Committee for Parkinson’s UK.  J&J is also a founding investor in the Dementia Discovery Fund.

Why did you choose to work in dementia?

This is one of the greatest scientific and treatment discovery challenges with massive patient need. The field is desperate for effective new treatments and we need to gang up on the problem, not each other!

Twitter name:

Follow @DecJones3 [1]