Dr. Diaz is an entrepreneur and professor with over 25 years of experience within both academia and industry. He successfully administered drug discovery projects in the industry, collaborated with other researchers worldwide, and produced more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and 31 patents. As medicinal chemistry team leader and head of combinatorial chemistry at Galderma, he has led and managed chemistry teams that performed discovery and optimization of drug candidates up to clinical studies. He is Professor at the University of Montana where he teaches medicinal chemistry to graduate and pharmacy students. He is CEO and co-founder of DermaXon, which has identified a preclinical candidate currently in IND-enabling studies for the treatment of congenital ichthyosis and acne orally. DermaXon has also in its pipeline new chemical entities targeting pain and pruritus, and autoimmune diseases (interferonopathies). In the industry, he has developed expertise in drug discovery and development, project management, intellectual property strategy and go/no-go decisions. He is coinventor of a chemotherapeutic agent for the treatment of glioblastoma and of a neurological agent which completed Phase 1 clinical studies (NTRX-07).