Unraveling Mysteries of the Brain Through Neuroscience Research

In this episode, Brandon Li sits down with Raymond Sanchez, former CMO of Cerevel, now at Bain Capital Life Sciences, to discuss the neuroscience renaissance—the explosion of new treatments, novel mechanisms, and scientific breakthroughs reshaping the future of neuropsychiatric research. Ray shares his career journey, from early psychiatry research at Yale to scaling Cerevel from 3 to 350 employees and guiding it to a $8.7B acquisition by AbbVie. Key topics include:- The neuroscience renaissance: What’s driving renewed investment and innovation in brain research. - Research in schizophrenia: How muscarinic drugs like KarXT and Emraclidine could change the treatment landscape for schizophrenia. - The challenge of clinical trials in psychiatry: Why subjective measures, variability, and rising placebo effects make trials so difficult—and why we urgently need objective biomarkers. - Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s research: Why disease-modifying therapies are the next frontier, and what’s still missing. - Precision neuroscience: The promise of biomarkers, digital tools, and personalized medicine—and how long it might take to reach clinical practice. Ray also shares one of his hopes for the future: developing validated biomarkers that can make psychiatric trials more objective and accelerate drug approvals.

In this episode, Brandon Li sits down with Raymond Sanchez, former CMO of Cerevel, now at Bain Capital Life Sciences, to discuss the neuroscience renaissance—the explosion of new treatments, novel mechanisms, and scientific breakthroughs reshaping the future of neuropsychiatric research.

Ray shares his career journey, from early psychiatry research at Yale to scaling Cerevel from 3 to 350 employees and guiding it to a $8.7B acquisition by AbbVie.

Key topics include:
- The neuroscience renaissance: What’s driving renewed investment and innovation in brain research.

- Research in schizophrenia: How muscarinic drugs like KarXT and Emraclidine could change the treatment landscape for schizophrenia.

- The challenge of clinical trials in psychiatry: Why subjective measures, variability, and rising placebo effects make trials so difficult—and why we urgently need objective biomarkers.

- Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s research: Why disease-modifying therapies are the next frontier, and what’s still missing.

- Precision neuroscience: The promise of biomarkers, digital tools, and personalized medicine—and how long it might take to reach clinical practice.

Ray also shares one of his hopes for the future: developing validated biomarkers that can make psychiatric trials more objective and accelerate drug approvals.