Nicholas Cammack, Chief Research Programmes Officer (Interim)
Nick is the Interim Chief Research Programmes Officer at Wellcome, leading a broad interlinked portfolio that focuses on discovery research and three urgent health challenges: mental health, infectious disease and climate and health.
Nick joined Wellcome in 2019 to lead the Snakebite programme – an £80 million fund to drive a step-change in snakebite treatment around the world. During the pandemic, Nick also led Wellcome’s activities in Covid-19 therapeutics. He was a member of the UK Government’s Antiviral Task Force and led an R&D cooperation of international partners to ensure Covid-19 treatments reached everyone who needs them around the world. In April 2024, he became Interim Chief Research Programmes Officer at Wellcome.
Previously, Nick was Head of the GSK Tres Cantos Medicines Development Campus for Diseases of the Developing World in Madrid, Spain. In this role, he was responsible for the discovery and development of medicines to treat some of the most devastating neglected diseases including malaria, tuberculosis, Chagas disease and Leishmaniasis. Nick led the drug discovery through an open innovation agenda of collaboration with many organisations such as Medicines for Malaria Venture, Global Alliance for TB, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Of note, Nick established and implemented the Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation (TCOLF) – a not-for-profit foundation that supports academic scientists to visit GSK in Tres Cantos to pursue their own drug discovery ideas, taking advantage of the expertise and facilities available there. This was a first for the Pharma industry and continues to be viewed as a bold, innovative step in neglected tropical disease drug discovery.
