Charles Cohen is Vice President of Discovery Research and joined Xenon in February, 2008. He has 25 years of experience in new drug discovery with expertise in neuroscience, cardiovascular disease, ion channels, electrophysiology and fluorescence assays. He most recently was at Vertex Pharmaceuticals in San Diego, where he led biology teams targeting neuropathic pain and neuroinflammation. A compound targeting neuropathic pain and backups were licensed to GSK for clinical development. Dr. Cohen was previously with Merck Research Laboratories for 18 years. Most recently, he was Director of Neuroscience at the San Diego site and world-wide coordinator of MRL research on multiple sclerosis and neuroinflammation.

Dr. Cohen received his PhD in Biophysics and Theoretical Biology from the University of Chicago and received post-doctoral training in the Department of Cardiology, University of Chicago and the Department of Physiology, Yale University. Dr. Cohen is the author of more than 30 peer review papers, primarily in the physiology and pharmacology of neuronal, myocardial and neuroendocrine cells.