Tony Coles appointed to Pfizer Spinout Cerevel as CEO

Cerevel Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company dedicated to treating neurological diseases, has appointed renowned biotechnology leader Tony Coles as Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Dr Coles joins Cerevel Therapeutics after a tenure as co-founder and CEO at Yumanity Therapeutics where he worked in establishing and advancing a drug discovery platform based on live cell modelling that has led to three novel drug candidates for the potential treatment of Parkinson’s disease, related synuclein disorders and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease). He also continues to serve as Executive Chairperson of the Board of Directors at the company.

Adam Koppel, member of the Board of Directors at Cerevel, said: “The Board of Directors were unanimous in our belief that, given his track record of success, Tony was the right person to lead the organisation as we aggressively pursue the development of transformative solutions to treat neuroscience diseases.

“If successful, Cerevel Therapeutics has the potential to profoundly impact more than 50 million under-served patients around the world. To achieve this goal, we have hand-selected a team of experienced leaders to tackle these difficult-to-treat diseases using new targets and novel therapies.”

Dr Coles currently serves on the Board of Directors of McKesson Corporation and Regeneron and is a member of the Board of Trustees for Johns Hopkins University. He is also a member of the Council for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC amongst others.

Prior to his work at Cerevel Therapeutics, Dr Coles served as Chairperson and CEO of Onyx Pharmaceuticals which was acquired by Amgen in 2013. Before joining NPS pharmaceuticals, Dr Coles was Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and also held several executive positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb.