Somnaceutics appoint Chief Scientific Officer

Dr Robert Feldman is now the Chief Scientific Officer at Somnaceutics. Dr Feldman qualified as a medical doctor in London and subsequently specialised in the field of clinical microbiology.

After working for a year as a clinical training fellow at Harvard Medical School, he returned to London and gained an MSc in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He then moved to the Netherlands where he was awarded his PhD at the University of Utrecht in the field of microbiological immunology. After a four year stay in The Netherlands he returned to London to take up a position of Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School/Hammersmith Hospital.

At the Royal Postgraduate Medical Schoo/Hammersmith Hospital, he built up a research team that looked into methods of prevention of bacterial infection in newborn infants. After three years of successful research, Dr Feldman founded the vaccine company, Microscience Ltd. The company was based on his own technology and that of another fellow researcher in the same department.

In 2002, he went on to found a new antimicrobial development company, Vmax Ltd., and remained CEO until 2005. Dr Feldman then moved to the hepatitis C therapeutics company, Riotech Pharmaceuticals Ltd. In 2005, he moved to Paramount BioSciences Inc. (a US based drug development company) to set up their European presence in London.

Most recently, he was CEO of the specialty pharmaceutical company, First Point Biotech, and was Entrepreneur in Residence at Imperial College London before moving to Somnaceutics. Dr Feldman has been directly involved in raising over US$ 60m for his various companies, has had extensive managerial and operational experience and has brokered and negotiated multiple licensing deals.

He has also held a Visiting Professorship in Neonatal Infection at Imperial College London. He is the inventor of 5 patent families and author of approximately 90 publications, abstracts and book chapters.