Shane Hegarty
Chief Scientific Officer Axonis Therapeutics
Dr Shane Hegarty is Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder and Co-Inventor at AXONIS Therapeutics, Boston-based, clinical stage biotechnology company that has raised $160M+ to advance first-in-class oral KCC2 potentiator drugs for neurological disorders. 15+ years of experience leading cutting-edge, award-winning neuro-protection, -modulation and -regeneration research for neurological disorders. As Research Fellow in Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, led genome-wide AAV-CRISPR screen for neuro-protection and -regeneration in vivo within Professor Zhigang He’s lab. Before US, he was Faculty Member in Neuroscience Department of University College Cork, Ireland, and received prestigious Neuroscience Ireland Investigator Award. Highly-productive researcher with 30+ publications, >1,600 citations, h-index=18, and a serial grant awardee. Experienced entrepreneur, biotech builder, drug hunter, innovator, university lecturer, research supervisor, editor, peer-reviewer, and team leader/manager/mentor.
Seminars
- Developing a non-opioid, first-in-class mechanism that a central nervous system-specific target to alleviate pain, without the side effects associated with existing analgesics
- KCC2 potentiation is a novel approach to address CNS sensitization-driven pain, and enables precision analgesic approaches in pain populations. KCC2 potentiators have analgesic efficacy and address spinal disinhibition pathology in pain
- Axonis first-in-class oral KCC2 potentiator, AXN-027, is advancing into Phase 1b/2a trials for treating pain
