Dr David Reynolds
David is a highly experienced pharmaceutical research and development leader having worked for nearly 20 years at Merck Sharp & Dohme, Lundbeck and latterly Pfizer, where he was the Cambridge Neuroscience & Pain research site head.
He has held a variety of R&D leadership roles with responsibilities ranging from exploratory biology, through drug discovery, early clinical development and in-licensing in multiple disease areas, with a focus on neuroscience and pain.
Before joining the Dementia Discovery Fund he spent three years as the Chief Scientific Officer of Alzheimer’s Research UK, Europe’s largest dementia research charity supporting academic research, translational drug discovery and providing information to patients and their families about their disease.
David holds a PhD on models of Huntington’s Disease from the University of Cambridge, UK. He is also a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Neurology, University College London, UK.
Dr Christian Jung
Christian joined the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) as a Partner in 2019 and currently represents the fund on the Boards of Transine Therapeutics and LoQus23 Therapeutics. Prior to DDF, Christian was a Principal at Wellington Partners Life Sciences.
Before joining Wellington, Christian was a Senior Investment Manager with High-Tech Gründerfonds, Europe’s leading seed fund. There, Christian completed and led the investments in nine seed- and early-stage companies, including Amal Therapeutics SA (acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim), Cunesoft (acquired by Phlexglobla) and Rigontec GmbH (acquired by MSD).
During the course of his PhD, Christian was supporting the Life Science Team of Atlas Venture in Munich. Christian has a PhD with distinction in Medical Science and Technology and an MSc degree in Molecular Biotechnology, both from the Technical University of Munich.
Dr Florian Muellershausen
Florian is a Managing Director at the Novartis Venture Fund in Basel, Switzerland.
Prior to joining Novartis Venture Fund, he worked as a Scientific Manager for the R&D Committee of the Novartis Board of Directors, and before that held various scientific and drug discovery roles at the Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research (NIBR) including as Laboratory Head in target discovery and in early clinical research as Translational Medicine Expert, Autoimmunity.
Florian received his MSc degree in Biochemistry from Free University Berlin and his PhD degree with great distinction in Biochemistry from Ruhr University Bochum and completed his post-doctoral training at NIBR in Switzerland.
Dr Melanie Ivarsson OBE
Melanie is the Chief Development Officer at Moderna, based in Cambridge USA.
Melanie is a highly experienced leader with more than 20 years of experience, at Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Shire and Takeda, working across all phases of clinical drug development. In her current role, Melanie oversees the delivery of all Clinical Development programs across Moderna’s portfolio.
After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Bristol in the UK, Melanie completed postdoctoral research at Lund University, Sweden and New York University, USA. Melanie also holds an Executive MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management. Melanie was awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Years Honour’s List for Services to Public Health.
