Simon E. Ward

Simon Ward has an MA in Natural Sciences and PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from Cambridge University, UK. He has wide-ranging experience of drug discovery in both large and small companies (BioCrea GmbH, GlaxoSmithKline, Knoll Pharmaceuticals, Vernalis, Chiroscience) and academia (founder of University of Sussex Drug Discovery Centre), and specialist experience of discovering and developing drugs for central nervous system indications. He has led multidisciplinary project teams and medicinal chemistry groups from target identification, through to early clinical studies, delivering multiple clinical development candidates across indications. Simon is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and serves as scientific advisor and board member to many charity, funder and biotech organisations. Simon is currently the Sêr Cymru Professor in Translational Drug Discovery and Director of the Medicines Discovery Institute, which he established within Cardiff University in 2017.