Valentino Parravicini

Dr. Valentino Parravicini joined the Group as Chief Scientific Officer in July 2020, and as such he is responsible for the designing, planning and delivering of the scientific strategies in alignment with corporate objectives set by the Board, by internal activities and liaising with key academic and business partners.

Valentino has over 10 years of experience in drug discovery and development accrued while working in Big Pharma and SMEs. He started his research and development career as a scientist at Roche S.p.A in Italy, before joining GlaxoSmithKline plc as investigator in the Epigenetic Drug Performance Unit of the Immune- Inflammation Therapeutic Area in the UK. He was also involved in setting up two start-up biotechnology companies at Kesios Therapeutics Limited and at GammaDelta Therapeutics Ltd.

Valentino has spent his academic career at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases at the National Institute of Health (USA) and at the National Institute for Medical Research – Medical Research Council, Mill Hill, now part of the Francis Crick Institute (UK), where his research in inflammation and autoimmunity led to the discovery of previously unknown signalling pathway and to high impact publications. He has lead research teams and programmes in the fields of immune-inflammation, oncology, and virology, both in small molecules and cell therapy, acquiring a wide breadth of knowledge in in vitro and in vivo models applied to early research and drug discovery and development, working in three different countries.

Valentino holds a Doctoral Degree in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Milan (Italy), where he has also obtained the professional habilitation as a pharmacist. He has PRINCE2 accreditation in project management and he obtained a Home Office Personal Licence (PIL-AB). He became a Fogarty Fellow at the National Institute of Health, and, as part of his national service, he worked in a non-governmental organisation to support education, prevention and treatment of cancer.