As the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Venture Leader for the Disease Interception Accelerator (DIA), Christopher leads efforts focused on pinpointing individuals who are at risk and in the earliest stages of COPD using radiology and biomarker tracking to stop small airway destruction.
Christopher started with the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) family of companies in March 2014, when he joined Respivert Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of J&J, as the Head of Biology. In July 2015, Christopher went on to serve as the Head of Respiratory Discovery within the Immunology Therapeutic Area (TA) at Janssen, where he executed discovery and biomarker strategies that ensured well-designed, candidate molecules entered and progressed through early clinical development in support of the portfolio.
Prior to joining J&J, Christopher worked in several respiratory discovery organizations over the course of 15 years at GlaxoSmithKline, Hoffmann-La Roche and Novartis where he led the Respiratory Translational Biology Unit. Christopher also held an academic faculty position at the National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London School of Medicine and is currenly an honorary professor of COPD Research at the University of Southern Denmark.
An author of over 40 peer-reviewed scientific publiations, Christopher is also listed as a co-inventor on two patents for novel anti-inflammatory molecules.
Christopher earned his Bachelor of Science and Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of California Santa Barbara.