University of Birmingham Celebrates Professor Alex Sinclair’s Distinction in Pharmaceutical Medicine Membership

Recognised internationally for her pioneering research in headache and brain trauma, Professor Sinclair, Professor of Neurology at the University of Birmingham, has been involved in the identification of disease pathways, discovering new drug approaches that act on these pathways and subsequently evaluating these drug approaches in clinical studies to assess their usefulness in treating patients.

Professor Sinclair has driven her preclinical and translational findings into pharmaceutical development. By securing intellectual property (patents, orphan drug designation (ODD) granted by the FDA and European Medicines Agency and key proof of concept data) she was able to raise significant funding ($38M) to create a University of Birmingham spin-out company. The company was launched on the Australian Stock market in July 2019. In her role as Chief Scientific Officer, she co-developed a comprehensive business strategy and led drug repurposing and reformulation and then animal bridging studies and pharmacokinetic assessments in human volunteers. She has been involved with the strategic engagement with regulatory authorities (EMA and FDA) and investigational new drug applications (IND). She has designed both Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials, has run and overseen analysis of data and authorisation of the Clinical Study Reports. She has overseen the filing to competent authorities for ethical approval in numerous geographies (US, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Germany, France, UK). She actively involved in training and developing the next generation of clinical and basic scientists.

Professor Sinclair’s expertise on raised intracranial pressure and her discovery of the new use of GLP- 1 receptor agonists to reduce intracranial pressure attracted interest from NASA, in their quest to reduce brain pressure during long duration space travel and allow them to go beyond the moon.

Over the period of 10 years, Professor Sinclair has published her work extensively and has also been awarded over £22million in grant funding in relation to her research from organisations such as, but not limited to, the Medical Research Council, Department of Defence USA, the Ministry of Defence UK and the UK Space Agency.