Christopher Carreras

Chris Carreras received a B.S. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of California, San Francisco. Following postdoctoral studies at Stanford University, Chris joined Kosan Biosciences as an early employee, developing assays for and screening compounds against cancer, nerve regeneration and gastrointestinal targets. He led the motilin agonist team, which developed cell-based, ex vivo and dog models to assess the potency, pharmacokinetics and efficacy of prokinetic agents.
Chris then became an early employee at Ardelyx to help discover drugs that act solely within the gastrointestinal tract. He grew a molecular pharmacology team that developed assays for enzymes, ion channels, transporters and GPCRs. The team worked closely with medicinal chemists to assess compounds and with in vivo pharmacologists to assess plasma/mucosal biomarkers. Chris is a co-inventor of tenapanor (IBSRELA), a gut-restricted NHE3 inhibitor with FDA approval for IBS-c and pending approval for hyperphosphatemia.
Most recently, Chris worked at ProLynx on chemical technology that extends the pharmacokinetic half-life of small molecules, peptides, and proteins. Chris has co-authored more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and is co-inventor on 9 issued US patents for drugs and methods for drug discovery. As the Director of Preclinical Pharmacology, Chris collaborates with partners across the Stanford Innovative Medicines Accelerator to develop new and effective drug and vaccine prototypes.