Xavier

Biography

Dr. Xavier Leroy majored in Biochemistry at the UTC - France and performed his Ph.D. thesis at the Laboratory of Molecular & Cellular Biology – ISAMOR - France. He held a postdoctoral position at Novartis - Switzerland before joining Axovan Pharmaceuticals Ltd as Head of Molecular Biology & Applied Research. Dr. Xavier Leroy was Associate Director in the Drug Discovery Group at Actelion Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Allschwil, Switzerland, where he was the promoter and leader of several G-Protein Coupled reports (GPCRs) projects in the CNS and Peripheral Inflammation Fields that reached the Clinics. Xavier Leroy was a pioneer in several approaches like the application of Phage-Display to membrane proteins, allowing the discovery of highly potent modulators, agonists and antagonists. As a target hunter, he paired 4 important peptides/neuropeptides on GPCRs. In recent years, Xavier Leroy was a key actor of the emerging research field of Resolution of Inflammation. He demonstrated the importance of this pathway through the discovery and validation of different targets and molecules. He was developing assays allowing a better characterization of the molecules and the understanding of the associated pharmacology (e.g., residence time, insurmountably, biased agonists, in-vivo target engagement). Xavier Leroy is the author of 12 patents and of some publications. He is Chairman and Key Speaker of several congresses and symposiums (i.e. Keystone). He has organized in the last years several Drug Discovery congresses.

Research Interest

Molecular & Cellular Biology