Ken Duncan

Ken Duncan leads the foundation’s efforts to advance drug discovery. He and his team work with external partners to identify new drug candidates that can address global health needs.

Before joining the foundation in 2007, Ken spent 16 years in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently as director of diseases of the developing world at GlaxoSmithKline, then two years as a consultant to the Gates Foundation and a project manager at Imperial College London.

Ken established the foundation’s TB Drug Accelerator, an innovative collaboration across industry, academia, and nonprofit drug discovery teams. This new model has been adapted and applied in other areas of research to facilitate collaboration and speed up discovery. Ken also played a major role in launching the Global Health Drug Discovery Institute in Beijing, China.

Ken serves on the Selection Committee of the Global Health Innovative Technology Fund in Japan and is a member of the Governing Board of the Tres Cantos Open Lab Foundation in Spain.

Ken received a B.Sc. in molecular biology from the University of Edinburgh and a Ph.D. from the University of Glasgow. He carried out postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School.