Dr. Jennings brings more than 25 years of biotechnology industry experience spanning global pharma to early stage biotech start-ups. Prior to Liphorus, Dr. Jennings was Director of Computational Sciences and Crystallography at Takeda California where he led the development of novel computational techniques focused on supporting structure based and ligand based drug discovery, and placing them in the hands of the project scientists. In addition, many novel predictive models were developed to address drug discovery and development needs such as predictive ADMET and biophysical properties. During his 14-year tenure with Takeda he has been associated with numerous successful drug discovery programs across multiple targets and therapeutic areas.
Dr. Jennings was previously at Syrrx, a high-throughput crystallography-based drug discovery firm that Takeda acquired in 2005 for $270 million. Syrrx developed Alogliptin (trade name Nesina in the US and Vipidia in Europe), an orally administered anti-diabetic drug in the DPP-4 inhibitor class. Prior to joining Syrrx, Dr. Jennings was employed at GlaxoSmithKline for over a decade, first as a Medicinal Chemist before making the successful transition to the Computational and Structural Sciences group. During this time he supported multiple successful drug discovery projects as both Medicinal Chemist and Computational Chemist leading to multiple papers and patent filings.
Dr. Jennings received a B.Sc. (Hons) in Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry from Hertfordshire University, and a Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry and Bioinformatics from The Open University/Imperial Cancer Research Fund.