Grant Morley Email and Phone Number

I provide consulting to pre-clinical and clinical stage biotechnology companies. I have a special interest in start-up companies. Armaron Bio-Armaron Bio is a life sciences start-up company discovering and developing proprietary molecules to prevent heart failure, diabetes and other serious diseases. Reporting to the CEO I assisted with setting up a Proof of Concept Phase II trial in heart failure.

Velacor is a start-up biotechnology company originating from the University of Melbourne. Velacor has identified that a specific selenium compound can block tau neurofibrillary tangles in Alzheimer's disease and stop and even reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's. At Velacor I successfully raised capital to fund a phase 2 clinical trial in Alzheimer's disease. The funding was used to complete the preclinical programme and conduct a phase 2a safety and tolerability study in Alzheimers disease… Show more Velacor is a start-up biotechnology company originating from the University of Melbourne. Velacor has identified that a specific selenium compound can block tau neurofibrillary tangles in Alzheimer's disease and stop and even reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's. At Velacor I successfully raised capital to fund a phase 2 clinical trial in Alzheimer's disease. The funding was used to complete the preclinical programme and conduct a phase 2a safety and tolerability study in Alzheimers disease including proof of concept Alzheimer's disease biomarkers secondary endpoints. The study was conducted at 5 trial sites throughout Melbourne. During this time we advanced key patents through national phase and filed novel formulation patents as an inventor. The study was completed in 2016 which demonstrated the drug was safe and tolerable but failed to hit disease biomarkers. As a result the IP was returned to the inventors and the company deregistered in 2017. Show less

Melbourne Ventures is the commercialisation company for the University of Melbourne. I am a member of the New Ventures management team that provide management services to start-up biotechnology companies originating from the University of Melbourne. During this time I was seconded to two start-up companies as Chief Operations Officer, reporting directly to the Board: Velacor Therapeutics and Radical Biotech. Velacor Therapeutics was developing a selenium based clinical-stage product for the… Show more Melbourne Ventures is the commercialisation company for the University of Melbourne. I am a member of the New Ventures management team that provide management services to start-up biotechnology companies originating from the University of Melbourne. During this time I was seconded to two start-up companies as Chief Operations Officer, reporting directly to the Board: Velacor Therapeutics and Radical Biotech. Velacor Therapeutics was developing a selenium based clinical-stage product for the treatment of Prostate Cancer. During this time we completed preclinical testing, filed patents, successfully raised grant funding and completed a phase 1 clinical study in Prostate Cancer. On the back of the phase 1 data and preclinical mechanism of action studies, Velacor Therapeutics pivoted to neurodegenerative disease. On the back of a successful preclinical program in Alzheimer's disease and fundraising, I became directly employed full-time as Velacor Therapeutics CEO to advance the lead candidate in Alzheimer's disease. Radical Biotech was exploring novel pre-clinical Nox2 inhibitors to reduce reactive oxygen species for the treatment of stroke and other related disorders. Show less

Grant had two roles at CogState. Firstly he managed the preclinical development of a novel agent to treat Parkinson’s disease and an Alzheimer’s disease therapy in discovery phase funded under a Biotechnology Innovation Fund grant from the Commonwealth government. In his second role he acted as Project Manager to roll out their computerized cognitive testing system to Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials for major international pharmaceutical companies.