Dr. Jack Scannell is best known for his work on the causes of the decline in R&D productivity in the drug and biotechnology industry. He coined the term “Eroom’s Law” (from computer science’s “Moore’s Law” spelled backwards) to describe the fall in biopharma R&D output efficiency since 1950 in the face of spectacular gains in basic science and in the brute force efficiency of the activities on which drug discovery is generally believed to depend. His work considered the contributions of scientific, economic, regulatory, and organizational factors. Recently, he has focused on the predictive validity of screening and disease models in drug R&D, which constitute perhaps the major productivity bottleneck. Dr Scannell is the CEO of Etheros Pharmaceuticals Corp. Etheros is developing small molecule enzyme mimetics, based on fullerene chemistry, for neurodegenerative diseases. He is an Associate of the Department of Science, Technology, and Innovation Studies at Edinburgh University.

Previously, he led Discovery Biology at e-Therapeutics PLC, an Oxfordbased biotech firm. He has experience in drug and biotech investment at UBS and at Sanford Bernstein where he ran the European Healthcare teams. He holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Oxford University and a degree in medical sciences from Cambridge University.