David Cavalla MA, PhD

Dr. David has worked in drug repurposing for over 15 years largely through his other company, Numedicus. He has invented and contributed to the development of three first in class projects based on new uses for existing drugs, which have progressed successfully through proof-of-concept clinical trials. Highlights include S-pindolol for cancer cachexia, which demonstrated both a highly significant increase in weight relative to the loss of weight suffered in the placebo group, as well as an improvement in functional capacity; and tianeptine, which was shown in a clinical trial to oppose opiate-induced respiratory depression without antagonising analgesia, something the world of analgesic medicine has awaited for a long time. As CSO of Healx, he works on predictive methods in repurposing, which the company provides specifically for rare diseases, in partnership with the patient charities and groups afflicted by these serious conditions. In 2015 he published a book called ‘Off-label Prescribing: Justifying Unapproved Medicine’ which deals with an ‘iceberg’ of poorly regulated medical practice, usually characterised by inadequate evidence of efficacy, which concerns one in five currently written prescriptions.