Prof Pradeep Nathan

Professor Pradeep Nathan

BSc PhD MA FCP

Pradeep Nathan is a clinical pharmacologist and neuroscientist working in academia and the pharmaceutical industry. Pradeep's research interests are in the neuropharmacology and neural substrates of cognition and emotion and psychiatric and neurological endophenotypes.

Prof Pradeep Nathan

Biography

Pradeep Nathan read pharmacology and neuroscience at the University of Melbourne followed by a PhD in experimental medicine. He is Vice President of Central Nervous System (CNS) Clinical Development and Head of Experimental Medicine for Sosei Heptares (formally Heptares Therapeutics). He is an Affiliated Lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge and Adjunct Professor at Neuroscience at Monash University, Australia.

Pradeep has over 10 years of experience working in drug development and during this time played a significant leadership role in the pre-clinical, early-clinical development and experimental medicine strategy and execution of translational and clinical studies for a number of CNS targets. These include M1 agonist, H3 antagonist, D3 antagonist, 5-HT6 antagonist, Mu-opioid receptor antagonist, COMT inhibitor, Orexin 1 antagonist and D1 PAM for a number of indications including Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, obesity and addiction. He is currently leading the experimental medicine and early-clinical development of compounds targeting muscarinic M1 and M4, mGlu5, and Orexin 1 receptors for various CNS indications.

Pradeep has also contributed to medical sciences and drug discovery/development through his significant contributions to scientific peer review and working across industry/academia boundaries to facilitate translational neuroscience and drug discovery/development efforts. He has been a member of the MRC's Developmental pathway funding scheme, Therapeutic target validation mental health and Industry asset sharing panels over the last five years and acted as a key opinion leader and advisor for the MRC's five-year mental health strategy. He has also been part of a Europeean-wide working group that brought together stakeholders from academia, industry and regulatory agencies to address many challenges in psychiatric drug development and stimulate research and development activity within industry.

Recognitions & achievements

  • Pradeep is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the American College of Clinical Pharmacology. 

Research interests

Pradeep's research interests are in the neuropharmacology and neural substrates of cognition and emotion and psychiatric and neurological endophenotypes. He uses cognitive, functional and molecular neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, electrophysiology, PET) to understand where and how neuropharmacological agents modulate cognitive and emotional processes and associated neural networks.

He is also interested in the application of these approaches to CNS drug discovery through development of functional biomarkers which might aid in the development of more refined and targeted treatment approaches for cognitive and emotional dysfunction in psychiatric and neurological disorders. He has published published over 180 papers (H-index of 55; 11000 citations) and has been involved in the research and development of over 20 drug compounds from pre-clinical to clinical development.