Jonathan Larkin

Bio-sketch

I am a Visiting Professor of Musculoskeletal Biology in the Research Unit of Health Sciences and Technology at the University of Oulu since May 2023. Concurrently I am also the President and Founder of SynOA Therapeutics, a start-up biotechnology company focused on developing new medicines to treat osteoarthritis (OA), and a Senior Partner (Consultant) at The Bracken Group. Prior to this I spent 18 years at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the drug development field primarily dedicated to drug discovery and development of novel small and large molecule medicines and leading corporate strategy for OA. Somewhat unique for those with a pharmaceutical industry background, I have also been fortunate to have had the opportunity to seek and secure governmental and private funding for numerous OA-focused public-private consortia and technology-based projects to aide in the advancement of therapeutic assets. In total these encompass 6 projects with independent budgets ranging from $1M-$19.3M and durations of 1-6.5 years, that not only progressed our work, but has allowed me to build a broad network of multi-disciplinary collaborators and gain experience in implementing and effectively leading governmental project grants. This is most exemplified by the APPROACH Applied Public-Private Research enabling OsteoArthritis Clinical Headway Consortium, where I was the project Coordinator from its conception in 2013 through its completion in 2022. The consortium focused on the study of osteoarthritis patients in longitudinal observational cohorts to enable stratified medicine and improved clinical trials (IMI APPROACH). The focus of my role within the University of Oulu is to foster advancement of collaborative OA research and improved clinical development of therapeutics through securing funding and leading diverse international teams of expert researchers.

Education

I am a viral immunologist by training. I fulfilled my bachelor’s degree in Biology at Moravian University (B.S., 1994) and completed doctoral studies in Pathology and Cell Biology studying hepatitis B virus immunopathology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, USA (Ph.D., 2000). I performed postdoctoral research focused on hepatitis C therapeutics at Eli Lilly & Co (2000-2002) and innate immunity at Indiana University (2003-2004).

Current Research

My main area of research is pathophysiology of osteoarthritis with an applied focus on stratified medicine and therapeutic drug development. I am actively working to progress the next wave of OA therapeutics through clinical development by applying foundational tenants of translational and experimental medicine and have established collaborations with academic, clinical and biotech/pharmaceutical experts in the field.