Ronald Burch is the Chief Medical Officer of Gate Neurosciences. With more than 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Burch’s expertise spans discovery research, preclinical safety, clinical research, regulatory affairs, and company formation. He has participated in more than 20 IND submissions from which 7 investigational products have become marketed products and 2 are currently in phase 3 clinical trials.

Previously, Dr. Burch served as the Director of Pain & Inflammation at Nova Pharmaceutical Corporation where he led programs from lead identification into clinical trials for a range of indications including pain and asthma. He was also Head of US Biosciences at Zeneca Pharmaceuticals Group where he led the CNS Therapeutic Area team that developed the antipsychotic agent Seroquel. And at Purdue Pharma LP, Dr. Burch was Vice President, Scientific Evaluations and a member of development teams that introduced Tramadol CR, Norspan, and hydromorphone ER, and headed the discovery teams that identified and took V11294 (PDE4 inhibitor) into phase 2 for asthma as well as LABD (long-acting bupivacaine injectable) into phase 2 for pain.

Dr. Burch then founded and was CEO of AlgoRx until its reverse merger with Corgentech, developing Zingo (nanoparticle lidocaine transdermal) to NDA for procedural pain in children and ALGX-4975 (capsaicin injection) to phase 2 for analgesia in total knee replacement, Morton’s neuroma, and bunionectomy (currently in Phase 3 fast track development as CTNX-4975 by Centrexion). Following AlgoRx, Dr. Burch oversaw the phase 2 and phase 3 of long-acting bupivacaine injection at Pacira, now approved as Exparel. Dr. Burch then left Pacira to join the founding team of Naurex where he oversaw the regulatory strategy and clinical trials programs for the NMDA receptor modulators GLYX-13 (through phase 2b) and NRX-1074 (through phase 2a) for depression prior to being acquired by Allergan.

Dr. Burch obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina and BS in chemistry and marine biology from the College of Charleston. Dr. Burch was a researcher at the National Institutes of Health, performing research involving neuroreceptor regulation with Nobel Laureate Dr. Julius Axelrod.