Dr Joseph Cheriyan
Consultant Clinical Pharmacologist & Physician · MBChB, MA, FRCP, FESC, FACC
Affiliated Associate Professor, University of Cambridge
Dr Cheriyan is a clinician-scientist whose research programme evaluates novel and repurposed therapeutics in humans — spanning first-in-human safety studies through to proof-of-efficacy trials — with a particular focus on cardiovascular medicine (hypertension, heart failure, acute coronary syndromes, dyslipidaemia and vascular inflammation) and respiratory medicine (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and COVID-19). His work sits at the interface of experimental medicine, clinical pharmacology and translational cardiovascular science, and is supported by a portfolio of investigator-led trials, industry-sponsored studies and academic collaborations across the University of Cambridge and Cambridge University Hospitals. He also holds a Visiting Researcher appointment at Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia.
Since December 2013 he has served as Director and Theme Lead of the Cardiovascular Trials Office at the Cambridge Clinical Trials Unit (CCTU), leading the University-hosted trials infrastructure that supports the group's investigator-led and academic-industry cardiovascular studies.
From 2007 to 2020 Dr Cheriyan held a 13.5-year, part-time (0.5 FTE) NHS secondment to the GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Unit Cambridge, serving as an investigator on numerous first-in-human and Phase I/II industry-sponsored trials — an experience that continues to shape the design, governance and translational ambition of the group's current programme.
He directs a substantial postgraduate education portfolio for junior doctors and clinician scientists, including the Cambridge Medical Seminars and the Experimental Medicine Training Initiative (EMI); since 2018 this has extended internationally through joint courses delivered in partnership with the Royal College of Physicians across South-East Asia.
Clinically, Dr Cheriyan is the senior consultant in the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, where he contributes to the acute-medical intake at Addenbrooke's Hospital and runs hypertension and general-medicine outreach clinics at Addenbrooke's and Saffron Walden.
The group's purpose is to translate rigorous experimental medicine into therapies that reach the patients who need them — through international, collaborative and uncompromisingly high-quality clinical trials.