Our Team
Our name encompasses our mission: to create a new class of therapeutics that inhibit NOD-like receptors — specifically the NLRP3 inflammasome, which is an intracellular multi-protein complex that assembles in response to environmental danger signals and plays a key role in the regulation of innate immunity.
We are pursuing this mission at a time of growing awareness about the revolutionary potential of the NLRP3 inflammasome. Supported by blue-chip investors and led by a management team with a proven track record in drug discovery and development, NodThera is pushing the science of NLRP3 inflammasome inhibition into new frontiers.
Leadership
Adam Keeney, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Adam previously held the position of global head of business development at Sanofi Genzyme, where he led BD activities across each of Sanofi’s specialty care therapeutic areas, including immunology, neurology, oncology, rare diseases and rare blood disorders. Adam was also head of R&D strategy and chair of the internal governance body that oversaw the review, prioritization and execution of all external R&D investments at Sanofi. Prior to Sanofi, Adam held roles of increasing responsibility at Johnson & Johnson, including as site head of the company’s California Innovation Center, where he catalyzed early stage innovation across J&J’s pharmaceuticals businesses. Adam began his career as a research scientist at H. Lundbeck A/S. He holds a Ph.D. in neuropharmacology from the University of Nottingham, UK.
Alan Watt, Ph.D., MBA
Chief Scientific Officer
Alan has over 30 years of experience in drug discovery and development in both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. His previous roles include serving as vice president of therapeutics at Bicycle Therapeutics, as chief operating officer and executive vice president of R&D at Trident Pharmaceuticals, and as chief executive officer of Xenovium. Alan formerly led inflammasome discovery at GlaxoSmithKline, where he established the Pattern Recognition Receptor Discovery Performance Unit within GSK’s Immuno-Inflammation Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery (CEDD). He also previously served as head of drug metabolism and in vivo pharmacology at Merck. Alan holds a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Southampton, a Ph.D. in drug metabolism from the University of Hertfordshire and an MBA from the Open Business School. He has over 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications.
Donald R. Johns, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Donald is an experienced pharmaceutical industry leader and physician. As the founder and president of Axon Guidance LLC, he has provided strategic and operational consultation to a number of pharmaceutical companies, including serving as the consulting chief medical officer at several start-up biotechnology companies. Most recently, Donald served as the Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of Medical and Scientific Affairs at Syntimmune. During his tenure, he managed the transition upon the company’s acquisition by Alexion Pharmaceuticals. He previously served at Biogen as leader of the ALS Innovation Hub and Spinal Muscular Atrophy clinical development teams and at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) as the vice president, global head of neuroscience translational medicine. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, he was a neurologist clinician-scientist at Johns Hopkins University and a neurologist clinician-scientist and associate professor of neurology and ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. Donald is the author of more than 100 scientific publications and 17 patents. He earned his B.A. from Vanderbilt University and M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine. He completed an internal medicine internship and adult neurology residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and is a board-certified Neurologist.
Alison Strutt, Ph.D.
Head of Finance and Operations
Alison is a seasoned healthcare finance executive with extensive transactional and operational experience. She formerly held a number of senior finance roles at GlaxoSmithKline, including as chief of staff to the chief finance officer, where she was responsible for transforming GSK’s reporting processes. Alison also served as chief financial officer of GSK’s drug discovery group, where she established the Tres Cantos Open Lab and Catalyst Science Park at GSK’s UK R&D site. Prior to working for GSK, Alison led the UK M&A life sciences sector group at Deloitte. Alison holds a Ph.D. in chemistry and physical chemistry from the University of Wales, Cardiff.
Chris Gabel, Ph.D.
VP, Biology
Chris began his research career as an assistant professor in cell biology at Columbia University studying lysosomal enzyme trafficking. He subsequently transitioned to drug discovery research and spent over 20 combined years seeking to identify novel therapeutics as part of the inflammation drug discovery units at Pfizer and Amgen. While at Pfizer, Chris and his research team pioneered studies aimed at understanding cellular processes involved in regulating posttranslational processing of newly synthesized IL-1β. The lead compound that emerged from this effort was later demonstrated by others to be a selective inhibitor of NLRP3 activation, establishing the drugability of this axis. Chris later spent several years working as an independent consultant, during which time he helped to launch NodThera. Chris received his Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from Iowa State University and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Washington. He has over 70-peer reviewed publications.
Mark Bock, Ph.D.
VP, Chemistry
Mark has over 40 years of drug discovery experience. He began his pharmaceutical career at Merck and spent 29 years at the company, where he led research groups targeting enzyme inhibitors, G-protein coupled receptors and ion channels. Mark later served as executive director of global discovery chemistry at Novartis, where he managed the company’s external medicinal chemistry drug discovery efforts in Asia and Europe and successfully advanced several candidate compounds to human clinical trials. Following his retirement from Novartis, Mark consulted for numerous companies in the U.S., Asia, and UK, including NodThera. Mark received his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia (R. K. Hill) and carried out post-doctoral studies at Harvard with E. J. Corey. He is the author or co-author of over 125 peer-reviewed scientific publications and inventor of more than 80 issued U.S. patents.
Nick Clarke, Ph.D.
VP, Preclinical Development
Nick is leading the development of NodThera’s lead candidate, NT-0167, through pre-IND testing. Prior to joining NodThera, he spent over 21 years at Pfizer in the U.K. and U.S., where he led successful drug development projects across a variety of therapeutic areas, including allergy, respiratory, inflammation and rare disease. Under his leadership, these projects progressed through early preclinical experimentation and candidate selection to initial clinical studies in volunteers and Phase 2a and Phase 2b studies in patients. Nick received his Bachelor of Science in pharmacology from the University of Portsmouth and his Ph.D. in anatomical neuropharmacology from the University of Oxford.
