Christopher Langmead

Christopher Langmead is a Professor and Deputy Director at the Neuromedicines Discovery Centre (NDC) within Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS), Monash University. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Phrenix Therapeutics, a biotech focused on schizophrenia therapeutics. Previously, he served as Head of Pharmacology at Heptares Therapeutics (2009–2012) and at GlaxoSmithKline (1998–2009). His expertise spans drug discovery, particularly in psychiatry and CNS disorders, with a focus on GPCRs and allosteric modulation.

• Affiliations: MIPS, NDC, Phrenix Therapeutics
• Education: BSc from Queens’ College, Cambridge; PhD from University College London

Research interests include drug discovery pipelines (target validation, lead optimization), next-generation mental health treatments, and translational research. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles and reviews, cited over 5,000 times. His work contributes to UN SDGs related to health and well-being.

Recent projects include developing adenosine A1 receptor modulators for epilepsy and GPR52 agonists for schizophrenia. He received the British Pharmacological Society Novartis Prize (2017) and co-led the $400M sale of Heptares to Sosei in 2015. He supervises HDR and Honours students in drug discovery.