Anton Bespalov obtained his MD degree from Pavlov Medical University (St. Petersburg) and after completion of PhD studies in St. Petersburg and Utrecht held NIH-supported Fellowships at Medical College of Virginia (Richmond, VA) and Scripps Institute (La Jolla, CA).

After habilitation (DMedSci) in 2000, Anton acted as a research director of Valdman Institute of Pharmacology. In 2004, Anton joined Abbott (later AbbVie) but maintained close connections to Pavlov Medical University where he is a professor at the Institute of Pharmacology and chaired the University’s Scientific Advisory Board. During his tenure at Abbott / AbbVie as head of pharmacology department, Anton and his teams have brought several compounds into preclinical and clinical development, supported licensing and due diligence decisions.

Anton has established and managed research contracts and collaborations with 100+ biotech companies, CROs and academic labs around the world. Founded and leads several international initiatives on preclinical data quality (co-chair of the ECNP Preclinical Data Forum: for more information click here).