Darryle D SchoeppChairman of the Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Schoepp has over thirty years of experience in the discovery and development of innovative Neuroscience therapeutics in pharmaceutical industry. This includes 20 years at Eli Lilly as a scientist and leader of the Neuroscience department, and 12 years at Merck as the CNS Therapeutic area leader. 

As a scientist he has over 200 publications (>19,000 citations of this work) and is an inventor of 15 US patents. He is recognized for having made major contributions in the investigation of the excitatory amino acid neurotransmitter glutamate in disease pathophysiology, pharmacology and therapeutics. His bench and leadership roles have led to the discovery and introduction into patients of over 20 novel first in class agents for psychiatric and neurological diseases. These include the first AMPA/kainate and metabotropic receptor negative and positive modulators (e.g. tezampanel, talampanel, LY354740, LY341595, eglumetad and pomoglumetad) investigated for migraine, pain, cognition, anxiety disorders and schizophrenia. While at Lilly, he was a co-discoverer of the compound LY246736 (alipimovan/Entereg) a first in class peripherally restricted opioid antagonist for post-operative ileus. Dr. Schoepp' was recipient of the 2002 Pharmacia / ASPET Award for Experimental Therapeutics and 2007 Ray Fuller / ASPET Lecturer in Neurosciences in recognition of translational pharmacology work in the glutamate field. 

At Merck his team have built a pipeline of innovative first class agents for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, pain/migraine, and schizophrenia. Merck Neuroscience successfully developed and launched the first in class orexin receptor antagonist Suvorexant (Belsomra) for insomnia and created the novel first in class oral CGRP antagonists ubrogepant (Ubrelvy) and atogepant for migraine treatment and prevention (commercialized by Allergan/Abbvie). 

Dr. Schoepp received his bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from North Dakota State University and his doctoral degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from West Virginia University. 

Currently Dr. Schoepp is an independent pharmaceutical research and development consultant who serves on the advisory boards for the Addex Therapeutics (SAB chair), Sosei Heptares, Lieber Institute, and Pharma Foundation Drug Discovery (advisory committee), (NIH Neurotherapeutics Blueprint (External Oversight Committee), and AgeneBio Inc. (Board of Directors member).