Holger Stark

Holger Stark is Professor for Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Chemistry and managing director at the pharmaceutical institutes at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany.

He is pharmacist by education and received his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry. During his habilitation at Freie Universität Berlin, he worked on new neurotransmitter ligands and prodrugs. Therefore, small molecule ligands for biogenic amine receptors (especially histamine and dopamine receptor subtypes) and also for lipid signaling cascade modulators are his main expertise. He is co-inventor of pitolisant (Wakix®, Ozawade®), the first histamine H3 receptor antagonist with market approval, and has prepared some back-up candidates in different leads for various targets. In 2000 Holger became full professor at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, and went in 2013 to the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he holds his actual position.