John Ford

Dr. John Ford has more than 18 years of ion channel, drug discovery and development experience. As a successful biotechnology entrepreneur, he co-founded Xention (CSO), Ario Pharma (CEO) and Metrion Biosciences (co-owner). At Xention he was responsible for the Kv1.5 ion channel atrial fibrillation project which was partnered to Servier (up to 120M EUR). Recently, he was a member of the Executive Team at Dezima (COO) that developed TA-8995 for dyslipidaemia (Phase 2b study published in The Lancet) and sold the company to Amgen ($300M upfront, potential deal size of US$1.55bn + royalties). Previous positions include Team Leader for Receptors and Channel Drug Discovery at BioFocus (now owned by Charles River). Dr. Ford holds a BSc and Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Leeds.