Mike Dawson is a consultant in antimicrobial research, who has spent the last 20 years working in the biotech sector.

Mike also has over 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry gained at GSK. As Head of Biotransformation and Natural Product Chemistry he played leading roles in natural product based drug discovery and the application of biological processes to drug manufacturing.

He left GSK in 2003 to set up Novacta Biosystems where, as Chief Scientific Officer (CEO), he led the development of the company’s C. difficile programme (NVB302) to a successful phase I clinical trial.

Mike became CEO of Cantab Anti-infectives after its inception in 2012, to continue to develop the polymyxins antibiotics started in Novacta. This programme has been acquired by Spero Therapeutics who are leading the clinical development of these agents.

Mike studied natural sciences at Cambridge and has a PhD in microbial biochemistry from the University of Leicester. He is a named inventor on 20 patents or patent applications and an author of approximately 60 research papers.

He has presented posters and oral presentations at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), including twice at the All New Antimicrobials Session, as well as other scientific conferences.