Eliot H. Ohlstein

Biography

Dr. Ohlstein is currently CSO for Velicept Therapeutics. Previously, Dr. Ohlstein was Senior Vice President of the Cardiovascular Urogenital Center of Excellence in Drug Discovery (CEDD) at GlaxoSmithKline. He was accountable for a research portfolio of both clinical and preclinical drugs. During his 25-year tenure with GSK, he was involved in taking seven drugs to market and led a clinical research group that achieved eight clinical proof of concepts in seven years. Dr. Ohlstein left GSK to initiate the spinning-out of a new start-up biotech company, Venuvics Pharmaceuticals and became CEO/CSO of that new company. Upon completing his work with Venuvics, he founded a new company AltheRx Pharmaceuticals Inc. where he was CSO and Head of R&D. Dr. Ohlstein sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards for several Biotech companies. He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Pharmacology at Drexel University Medical School. Dr. Ohlstein has authored over 270+ scientific publications, spoken at over 50 invited seminars/symposia and in 1996 was honored with the Prix Galien Award and Special Commendation for Innovation Research for endothelin receptors. In 2008, Dr. Ohlstein received PhRMA’s highest honor, the Discoverer’s Award, for his work on GSK’s Coreg® (carvedilol), the “standard of care” for chronic heart failure. Dr. Ohlstein is Vice-Chairman for the NC-IUPHAR, is the Editor for IUPHAR, is on the Editor Board for Pharmacological Reviews, and is Editor-in Chief for Drug Discovery Today. Dr. Ohlstein is also Specialty Editor-in-Chief for the Web 2.0 journal Frontiers in Pharmacology—Urogenital Disorders. Dr. Ohlstein has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Tulane University Medical School. His graduate research on the discovery of nitric oxide as an important biological mediator contributed to the Nobel Prize in 1998. 

Research Interest

 clinical research