Hassman Research Institute (HRI) announced that Dr. Larry Ereshefsky joined the company as chief scientific officer, Early Phase Development. Dr. Ereshefsky brings to HRI more than 40 years of drug discovery and development experience including leadership roles at University of Texas Health Science and Parexel. Dr. Ereshefsky will be responsible for leading HRI’s efforts and advancing the company’s Early Phase Development Division focusing on diseases. He will report to Dr. Howard Hassman, CSO of HRI.

“I am enthusiastic about Dr. Larry Ereshefsky joining HRI as chief scientific officer, Early Phase Development. He has an extensive record of innovative scientific contributions and will bring years of expertise and insight to the company,” said Dr. Hassman. “I believe Dr. Ereshefsky and the team at HRI have positioned the company for success and I welcome the opportunity to make a positive impact on the ongoing development of new therapeutic approach to help patients with Psychiatric Disorder, Pain, Addiction and countless other diseases.”

Uniquely, he was head of a laboratory applying the pharmacogenetics and pharmacokinetics of drugs to improve dosing and outcomes, served as sub-investigator on in vitro and animal neuropharmacology studies, is credentialed as a clinician caring for patients, and served as a Principal Investigator in over 100 clinical trials. Dr. Ereshefsky has a unique perspective having clinical investigator experience, Early/Late Phase research unit leadership, and more basic science applied research experience.

He has been a leader in the application of translational drug development tools including neurocircuitry/biomarker based (RDoC) strategies (i.e., continuous CSF sampling, QEEG, ERP, PSG, sMRI, fMRI, PET, and cognitive and behavioral paradigms), and pain models for many CNS disorders. He guides analyses exploring toxicokinetic, PK/PD modeling, and guides clinical drug development plans informed by preclinical data, animal behavioral markers, and safety signals. He incorporates the preclinical and available clinical study data into design strategies to efficiently de-risk early phase drug development.

HRI has roots that run three generations deep and extend over five decades. Founded with the vision of "Improving the Quality of Life" for the patients we serve, our privately owned medical complex is located just twenty minutes from Philadelphia in Berlin, NJ. HRI conducts a full complement of inpatient and outpatient phase I-V research trials and specialize in Psychiatry, Addiction, Pain Management, Human Abuse Liability, Hepatic/Renal and Internal Medicine Therapeutic Areas.

Dr Howard Hassman has an extensive background in psychodynamic psychotherapy, pain management, psychopharmacology and addiction medicine. As chief scientific officer, Dr. Hassman leads a highly-experienced team of Board Certified Investigators, Psychometric and Pain/Addiction Raters, Clinical Research Coordinators and Quality Assurance and Regulatory Affairs Specialists. The HRI team is the backbone of our company and driving force behind meeting critical project timelines while maintaining the highest standard of quality for pharmaceutical sponsors.