Maria Pia Catalani is the Director of the Lead Discovery Department in Axxam. She joined Axxam in November 2019 as Head of the Discovery Chemistry Group, becoming then in 2022 Head of the Hit Tailoring Solution Group.

Prior to Axxam Maria Pia Catalani has worked in Evotec (Verona, Italy) and Aptuit (Verona, Italy) within different therapeutic areas (CNS, GI, Inflammation etc) and managing as Chemistry Leader several programs (H2L, LO). Maria Pia Catalani started her carrier as Medicinal Chemist in the pharmaceutical industry in 2005 in the PsyCEDD, GlaxoSmithKline Medicines Research Centre based in Verona where she built her knowledge in the field of Medicinal Chemistry working on projects from hit to candidate selection in the CNS area.

Maria Pia has obtained her master’s degree in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Pisa (Italy) and progressed her studies with her PhD in Chemical Sciences at the University of Florence. She is co-author and co-invetor of several publications and patents.