Antonio Felici, PhD

Antonio can be considered a veteran of drug discovery and development in the antimicrobial resistance space where he spent almost 30 years both in Big Pharma and CROs.

Joining the Centre of Excellence of Drug Discovery of Glaxo Wellcome after his PostDoc at University of Liege and the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology – working on the enzymology of metallo-ß-lactamases – he led fully integrated, multi-sites discovery and development projects on novel antibiotic molecules and established the Microbial Biochemistry Lab, which has been implemented during the transition to GlaxoSmithKline.

Antonio contributed to the development of the Infectious Disease group both at Aptuit and Evotec SE, working with strong colleagues and acting as AMR Therapeutic Are Leader and managing activities across three sites, with the involvement of more than 100 specialists in the field. His scientific contribution on third party’s project resulted, as an example, in a novel anti-Acinetobacter baumannii compounds currently in advanced clinical testing. Additionally, he was actively involved in the definition of experimental strategies with external Partners developing novel approaches to treat severe infections.

Currently, Antonio is Vice President of Academic Partnership at Evotec and he is accountable of identifying novel therapies and therapeutics approaches by unleashing the creativity and innovation of academic institutions supporting EXTEND S.r.l., a start-up studio funded by Evotec SE, CDP Venture Capital Sgr., and Angelini Ventures. Antonio, since 2024, serves also on the board of AUROBAC Therapeutics, a biopharma founded by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, bioMérieux and Evotec SE.