Dr Michael Leach PhD, MIBiol, FRSM

Reader in Pharmacology and Drug Development

Key details

Mike Leach

Dr Michael J Leach

Reader in Pharmacology and Drug Development


Dr Mike Leach gained his PhD at the Institute of Neurology, The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queens Square, London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and has a long pedigree in the pharmaceutical industry.

He was a former section head at Wellcome Research (now part of GlaxoSmithKline) and much of his career in the pharmaceutical industry centred around searching for treatments for epilepsy such as Lamotrigine; Lamictal™, used in the treatment of both adult and paediatric forms of epilepsy, brain damage after a stroke and more recently, multiple sclerosis (MS). Dr Leach is a co-inventor of Pleneva (BGC20-0134; BTG International) now in Phase II clinical trials for MS.

He is also a co-founder of one of the university's spin out companies – CenTRion Therapeutics – and a member of the School of Science Drug Discovery cluster group.

Responsibilities within the university

Course leader

  • Neuropharmacology
  • Physiology and Pharmacology
  • Pharmaceutics.

Course participation

  • Natural Products
  • API and Drug Development
  • Medicinal Chemistry and Therapeutics – Postgraduate.

Recognition

  • Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine (FRSM)
  • Member of Clinical Neuroscience and Pharmaceutical Medicine and Lipid Sections
  • Member of the Institute of Biology (MIBiol)
  • Journal Referee: Epilepsy Research; Epilepsia; Brain Research; Neuropharmacology; Stroke; Psychopharmacology;
  • Retained contributor to reference text : Antiepileptic Drugs

Research / Scholarly interests

  • Dr Leach is a member of the Pharmaceutical and Medicinal Science Research Group.

Other

Patents
  • Cyclic triazo and diazo sodium channel blockers. WO/2009/090431
  • New Medical use of Triazines derivatives. WO/2008/007149
  • Treatment of Neurodegenerative conditions. US 2010/00112810A1, EP 2324828, JP 2011144195.

Recent publications

Article

Zhou, Jiabao , Down, Jennifer M, George, Christopher N, Murphy, Jessica , Lefley, Diane V , Tulotta, Claudia , Alsharif, Marwa A , Leach, Michael , Ottewell, Penelope D (2022), Novel methods of targeting IL-1 signalling for the treatment of breast cancer bone metastasis. MDPI. In: , , , . MDPI, Cancers, 14: 4816 (19) 2072-6694 (Online) (doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14194816).

Walsh, Yvonne , Leach, Michael, Veale, Emma, Mathie, Alistair (2021), Block of TREK and TRESK K2P channels by lamotrigine and two derivatives sipatrigine, and CEN-092. Elsevier. In: , , , . Elsevier, Biochemistry and Biophysics Reports, 26: 101021 ISSN: 2405-5808 (Print), (doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrep.2021.101021).

Patent

Leach, Michael and , Williams, Paul (2023), Diazine and triazine compounds to treat cytokine storm syndrome US 2023/0165869 A1. In: , , , . , (doi: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20230165869A1/en?oq=Diazine+and+triazine+compounds+to+treat+cytokine+storm+syndrome+US+2023%2f0165869+A1).

Leach, Michael and , Williams, Paul (2021), Diazine and triazine compounds to treat cytokine storm syndrome. In: , , , . , (doi: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2016198878A1/ja).

Williams, Paul and , Leach, Michael (2021), Interleukin Inhibitors. In: , , , . , (doi: ).

Leach, Michael and , (2018), Triazine derivatives as interferon gamma inhibitors. In: , , , . , (doi: ).

Leach, Michael and , (2018), Triazine derivatives as interferon gamma inhibitors. In: , , , . , (doi: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=EP&NR=3307273A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20180418&DB=&locale=en_EP#).

Leach, Michael and , (2017), HK1170726 (A1)2017-06-02 Cyclic triazo sodium channel blockers. In: , , , . , (doi: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=HK&NR=1170726A1&KC=A1&FT=D&ND=3&date=20170602&DB=&locale=en_EP#).

Leach, Michael and , (2016), Triazine derivatives as interferon gamma inhibitors. In: , , , . , (doi: ).

Leach, Michael and , (2016), Cyclic triazo and diazo sodium channel blockers US divisional. In: , , , . , (doi: ).