Chris Swain

Current

Director/Founder at Cambridge MedChem Consulting

Past

Senior Director at Merck
Temporary Lecturer at Southampton University

Education

University of Cambridge
University of Southampton

Recommended

4 people have recommended Chris

Connections

231 connections

Industry

Pharmaceuticals

Websites

Chris Swain’s Summary

Founded Cambridge MedChem Consulting in May 2006, prior to that spent nearly 20 years at Merck.

Recent activities include, providing medicinal chemistry support for a project supported by the "Seeding Drug Discovery Initiative" initiated by Wellcome. Licensing oversight and review of possible licensing candidates. Recently joined the Scientific Advisory Board of Selcia Ltd. Ongoing collaborations with small startup companies providing lead finding oversight and lead optimisation input. Provided training/talks for RSC summer school and Pharma companies.

At Merck lead the NK1 Antagonist Project. Eight compounds selected for preclinical development, to date four have entered clinical development and one has been marketed (Emend). Co-author of background documents and presentations. Winner of the RSC 2000 Biological and Medicinal Chemistry Sector Prize, for work on NK1 antagonists.
Initiated five projects as the Chemistry Director of the Pain Franchise, all projects now have selected compounds for preclinical development. Initiated the Basic Research Electronic Notebook project. Representative for Terlings Park on the Chemical Technology Working group, responsible for bringing novel technologies into Merck. Terlings Park representative on the committee responsible for enhancing the Merck sample collection, designed and initiated numerous libraries. Responsible for Terlings Park computational chemistry effort, responsible for initiating cheminfomatics and combining with molecular modelling. Built first web-based portal for project information, allowing structure and activity based searching and document/report management. Built HTS_browser a tool for analysis of HTS data, responsible for analysis and initial follow-up of all screens initiated by Terlings Park. Responsible for analysis of the drug discovery process and an analysis of the progression of compounds through safety assessment, suggested alternative drug discovery paradigms to management team.

Chris Swain’s Specialties:

Drug discovery, medicinal chemistry, computational drug design, cheminfomatics, high-throughput screeing analysis.

Chris Swain’s Experience

Director/Founder

Cambridge MedChem Consulting

(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Pharmaceuticals industry)

April 2006 — Present (3 years 8 months)

1. High-throughput Screening analysis
2. Hit to Lead programmes
3. Lead optimisation
4. Computational support, in particular virtual screening and QSAR analysis.
5. Independent licensing oversight
6. Training courses on the drug discovery process
Senior Director

Merck

(Public Company; 10,001 or more employees; mrk; Pharmaceuticals industry)

June 1986 — April 2006 (19 years 11 months)

Responsible for medicinal chemistry and computational chemistry research group.
Temporary Lecturer

Southampton University

(Educational Institution; 1001-5000 employees; Research industry)

1984 — May 1986 (2 years )

Research interests Target Synthesis and methodolgy development
Demonstrating (1-3rd Undergraduates).Tutorials (1st and 2nd Year Undergraduates)
Gave and examined Lecture Course on Env Chemistry
Responsible for research group of 1-10 people.

Chris Swain’s Education

University of Cambridge
University of Southampton

Additional Information

Chris Swain’s Websites:

Chris Swain’s Interests:

MacOSX, FileMaker Pro, OpenBabel I am on the Executive committee for MacResearch (www.MacResearch.org) Founder of the Macs in Chemistry website Creator of iBabel

Chris Swain’s Groups:

Medicinal Chemistry Section Editor for Chemistry Central (http://www.chemistrycentral.com/)
Royal Society of Chemistry
Society of Chemical Industry
Organising Committee for RSC-SCI Cambridge Medicinal Chemistry Meeting
ERBI (http://www.erbi.co.uk/)