Dr Mike Trower

Dr Mike Trower is a drug discovery and development executive with over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, specialising in central nervous system (CNS), respiratory and women’s health therapeutics.

He spent almost two decades at GlaxoSmithKline, latterly as Vice President and Head of External Drug Discovery for the Neurosciences Centre of Excellence for Drug Discovery, where he was responsible for externalisation strategy across the preclinical and clinical portfolio.

In 2012 he co-founded NeRRe Therapeutics as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO), focussed on exploiting the potential of next-generation neurokinin(NK)1 receptor antagonists for neuronal hypersensitivity disorders and in particular chronic refractory cough. In 2017 he co-founded KaNDy Therapeutics as a spin-out of NeRRe, developing elinzanetant, a dual NK1/3  antagonist fas a non-hormonal therapy for menopausal vasomotor symptoms. KaNDy was acquired by Bayer in 2020 and elinzanetant has since been approved globally under the trade name Lynkuet®. He went on to co-found Rathlin Therapeutics as CSO, a women’s health company developing a novel undisclosed target.

Mike began his research career as a Jantet Fellow at the MRC Molecular Genetics Unit, Cambridge, in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Professor Sydney Brenner, following an industrial post-doctoral fellowship at EI du Pont de Nemours & Co. in Wilmington, Delaware. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology and a BSc (Hons) in Applied Biology, both from Nottingham Trent Polytechnic.

He now works as an independent consultant and non-executive/scientific advisory board member to early-stage biotech companies through his advisory company White Wings Consulting.