John Christopher

After a BSc degree in Chemistry (University of Birmingham) John obtained his PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry working in the laboratory of Prof. Philip J. Kocienski at Glasgow University. John then started his medicinal chemistry career at GSK, Stevenage, UK in 2000. After several years leading kinase projects where he gained valuable experience in the application of fragment-based and structure-based drug discovery techniques, John moved to run a hit-to-lead group working across multiple target classes (GPCRs, ion channels, enzyme targets and kinases). In 2007 he joined the Immuno-Inflammation area where after initially focusing on GPCR research he led a lead optimisation project for a protein-protein interaction target. John joined Sosei Heptares, based in Granta Park, Cambridge, UK, in 2010 where he is a Director in the Medicinal Chemistry department leading GPCR projects in the hit-to-lead and lead optimisation phases, and has responsibility for overseeing Sosei Heptares’ external chemistry activities. John is an author or inventor on more than 45 publications and patents.