Ken Maynard Takeda Pharmaceuticals International, Inc., Switzerland
A Senior Director at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Inc., with 18 years pharmaceutical industry experience, Ken was formerly an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital. His doctorate in neurobiology is from University College, London, U.K., and he is a Fellow of the American Heart Association, and a member of the John Maxwell Team.In his prior academic career, Ken’s subject matter expertise included immunohistochemistry and pharmacology of the cerebrovasculature. His studies identified peptidergic innervation in the human Circle of Willis and in human brain blood vessel abnormalities such as arteriovenous malformations. In collaboration with colleagues they also identified the origins and distribution of nitric oxide (NO) synthase (NOS)-containing perivascular nerves in rat and human cerebral arteries, respectively, and showed that NO played a significant part in normal cerebrovasular vasodilator responses, but that changes during cortical spreading depression are not mediated by NO. They also showed that NO modulates compound actions potentials and plays a critical role during ischemia in the retina. Using in vitro and in vivo animal models of cerebral ischemic and stroke, his former lab studied how the central nervous system could be protected from ischemia by rectifying the energy demands of the tissue using hypothermia and various single and combined chemical agents. Moreover, they showed how therapeutic dosing needs to vary to be effective depending upon co-morbidities such as hypertension and high blood glucose.
In the pharmaceutical industry Ken led cross-functional, research and development (R&D) teams in developing treatments for stroke, multiple sclerosis, pain, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, schizophrenia, cerebellar ataxia and epilepsy.
He previously served on the editorial boards of Current Neurobiology, Current Neurovascular Research, ISRN Vascular Medicine and Recent Patents on CNS Drug Discovery, and has been an invited speaker and panelist covering various topics including, stroke, hormesis, Central Nervous System R&D and innovation and research careers.
