Dr Charles Mowbray

Dr Charles Mowbray is the Discovery Director at DNDi responsible for discovering and advancing new drug candidates into development. He joined DNDi in 2011 and has worked extensively on infectious diseases including kinetoplastid diseases with a particular focus on leishmaniasis and latterly also on COVID-19. He is responsible for the drug discovery team and its activities including screening, hit-tolead, lead optimization, and preclinical and nonclinical activities in support of the DNDi portfolio. He is a member of leadership teams and a contributor to overall strategy. Dr Mowbray serves as the Principal Investigator for ‘21st Century treatments for sustainable elimination of leishmaniasis’ which is a strategic partnership with Wellcome. Dr Mowbray also conceived the NTD Drug Discovery Booster consortium with 8 global pharmaceutical companies. He serves as an expert advisor to organizations working on medicinal chemistry, neglected diseases and global health projects and contributes to the WHO Access to COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator (ACT-A). 

Dr Mowbray joined Pfizer in Sandwich, UK in 1992 and spent 19 years working as a medicinal chemist and project leader across multiple diseases, target classes and medicinal chemistry strategies and from target selection through to clinical candidate delivery. Five of these drug candidates have entered Phase I and two have completed Phase IIb clinical studies. 

Dr Mowbray gained both BSc and PhD degrees in chemistry from the University of Exeter and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University of British Columbia and the University of Nottingham. Dr. Mowbray is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and is an author of over 50 scientific publications and an inventor on 15 patents.