Claude Wischik's Biography

Claude Wischik, Executive Chairman & Co Founder, TauRx Therapeutics Ltd

Claude Wischik is Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at the University of Aberdeen and Executive Chairman of TauRx Therapeutics. He studied medicine in Australia, and undertook PhD and post-doctoral research at the MRC Laboratory of Cambridge, UK. He also completed higher training in psychiatry in Cambridge. During his PhD he discovered with colleagues that the neurofibrillary tangle originally described by Alois Alzheimer, and giving Alzheimer’s disease its name, is composed of a pathological polymer of the microtubule associated protein Tau. He also discovered that these polymers could be dissolved by pharmaceutical compounds of the diaminophenothiazine class. He established a team which developed in vitro and in vivo systems to establish plausibility of developing Tau Aggregation Inhibitor therapy for Alzheimer’s disease. He cofounded TauRx Therapeutics with colleagues in Singapore to develop diagnostics and therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease based on the Tau aggregation pathology. In the first ever TAI phase 2 trial, TauRx demonstrated the feasibility of arresting disease progression over 12 months. TauRx is currently conducting a global phase 3 trial of its lead compound in approximately 1,500 subjects in 22 countries.