John has more than 20 years’ experience building innovative and successful biotechnology companies. He co-founded Xention (CSO), Ario Pharma (CEO) and Metrion Biosciences (Investor Director).

At Xention he was responsible for the Kv1.5 ion channel atrial fibrillation project which was partnered to Servier (up to 120M EUR). He was a member of the Executive Team at Dezima (COO) that developed Obicetrapib for dyslipidaemia (Phase 2b study published in The Lancet) and sold the company to Amgen ($300M upfront, potential deal size of $1.55bn + royalties). Obicetrapib is currently in a Phase 3 cardiovascular outcomes trial for dyslipidaemia (Nasdaq: NAP).

Enterprise Therapeutics is developing novel drugs for muco-obstructive lung diseases and sold the TMEM16A portfolio to Roche/Genentech in 2020 as it entered the clinic for $100M + milestones. In addition to his role at Enterprise, John is the Chairman of Complement Therapeutics, a company that is currently developing a portfolio of treatments for complement-related diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, and Chairman of RyCarma Therapeutics, which is developing novel ryanodine receptor modulating drugs for cardiac and skeletal muscle disorders.

Previous positions include Team Leader for Receptors and Channel Drug Discovery at BioFocus (now owned by Charles River). Dr Ford holds a first class BSc and Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Leeds.