Robert Alexander

Dr. Alexander is currently the Chief Scientific Officer of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Previously, he was a VP in the neuroscience therapeutic area unit at Takeda. Prior to that, Dr. Alexander worked for Pfizer as VP and head of clinical for the neuroscience and pain research unit, and AstraZeneca where he was VP of clinical for CNS and the pain innovative medicines unit (iMed). His other prior positions include VP and head of discovery medicine and CMO of the Neurosciences Centre for Excellence in Drug Discovery at GlaxoSmithKline and senior director in the clinical neuroscience and clinical pharmacology at Merck Research Labs. Dr. Alexander received his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Chicago, completed an internship in Internal Medicine at the New England Deaconess and a residency in Adult Psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Following residency, he was a fellow in the Neuropsychiatry Branch of National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and then at Columbia University (in Medical Genetics). Dr. Alexander is an expert in psychopharmacology and has extensive experience in both early- and late-stage drug development and medical governance. He has conducted or supervised clinical studies in a broad range of neurologic and psychiatric indications, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), Huntington’s disease, pain (neuroinflammatory and neuropathic), multiple sclerosis, Friedreich’s Ataxia, Tourette’s syndrome, epilepsy, sleep disorders (including insomnia, narcolepsy, obstructive sleep apnea, and idiopathic hypersomnia), tinnitus, major depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders (in particular, social phobia and GAD), schizophrenia (both full spectrum antipsychotics and drugs targeted for cognitive impairment or negative symptoms in schizophrenia), and sexual dysfunction.