Awakn announces today the appointment of Dr. Shaun McNulty, formerly at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), as Chief Science Officer and Prof. Celia Morgan, from Exeter University, as Head of Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy for the company’s Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) Practice; both effective January 2021.

Dr. McNulty joins as an experienced biotechnology executive with over 20 years’ experience in drug development having previously held positions at Pfizer, GSK, Syntaxin, ImmBio, Biosceptre and Inflection Biosciences. He will be responsible at leadership level for executing Awakn’s research programmes and clinical trials.

“I am delighted to join Awakn at this exciting time in its expansion. The company has established a world class team to develop psychedelics for the treatment of patients. This highly innovative proven approach has the potential to address poorly met medical needs to improve the lives of millions of patients and their families,” said Dr. McNulty. 

Prof. Morgan will be responsible for leading Awakn’s newly established Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy for AUD Practice. Prof. Morgan is a Professor of Psychopharmacology at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, where she led the Ketamine for Reduction of Alcoholic Relapse (KARE) clinical trial, one of the world’s leading trials assessing Ketamine as a pharmacological treatment for Alcohol Use Disorder.

“I’m extremely excited to work with Awakn to take our Ketamine-Assisted therapy forward. We have shown potential to help the huge numbers of people struggling with alcohol problems in our first Medical Research Council funded phase II trial and now it is time to take it forward to the next stage,” said Prof. Morgan.

Anthony Tennyson, Awakn CEO, said, “We are delighted to welcome professionals of the calibre of Shaun and Celia to Awakn. Their experience and expertise will help us accelerate as we build and scale our business across our three divisions of Research, Clinics, and Platforms”.