Dr. Volker Knappertz is a recognized leader in the drug development community and has achieved numerous INDs and product approvals.  He served on several committees involving pharmaceutical, regulatory and academia medicine development.  His work has been published in leading peer reviewed journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, JAMA Neurology, Lancet Neurology, BMJ and Neurology.  He currently serves as an independent director on the board of Sutura Therapeutics, UK, an innovation-driven company developing RNA-targeted precision gene medicines to treat debilitating or life-threatening medical conditions.

Dr. Knappertz is the Executive Vice President of Research & Development at Aurinia, joining in July 2022. He leads the entirety of Aurinia’s R&D effort, including pre-clinical research and pharmacology, clinical development, patient safety, medical affairs, regulatory affairs, and all other R&D functions. 

Prior to joining Aurinia, Dr. Knappertz served as the Executive Vice President of Research & Development and Chief Medical Officer at GW Pharmaceuticals, a global biopharmaceutical company targeting medicines for rare and orphan diseases as well as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders and neurodegenerative diseases.  He was instrumental in driving the transformation of GW from a botanical pharmaceutical company to a fully integrated biopharmaceutical R&D and marketing organization, which was achieved by gaining the first FDA approval of Epidiolex, a treatment for rare developmental childhood onset forms of epilepsy and building a pipeline of novel small molecule CNS therapeutics.

Before joining GW, he was the Vice President of clinical development for multiple sclerosis, immunology, oncology and biosimilar products at Teva Pharmaceuticals achieving several drug approvals and business development deals. During the first decade of his drug development career Volker held R&D positions in multiple therapeutic areas including CNS, CV and immunology at Astrazeneca and Bayer.

Dr. Knappertz received his magna cum laude doctorate and Medical Degree from Cologne University. He has served as adjunct professor in Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf.  He was trained in Neurology at Yale University, fellowship trained at Wake Forest University and is a US board certified neurologist.