Aaron Koenig
Chief Medical Officer Syndeio Biosciences
Aaron currently serves as Chief Medical Officer at Syndeio Biosciences. Previously, he served as Chief Medical Officer at Delix Therapeutics. Prior to joining the biopharmaceutical industry, Aaron was a clinical investigator at the Massachusetts Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and practiced as a clinician in the MGH Memory Disorders Unit in the Department of Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Aaron received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and completed a residency in adult psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic of UPMC, where he also served as a Chief Resident for Research. He subsequently completed a clinical fellowship in geriatric psychiatry at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, followed by a post-doctoral research fellowship in psychiatric genetics and translational research at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Aaron is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN), and has been involved in clinical and translational research throughout his career, with a particular focus on the development of treatments for neuropsychiatric disorders with high unmet need.
Seminars
- How multimodal digital biomarkers can sensitively capture early treatment signals and behavioral change before traditional clinical endpoints emerge
- The role of EEG and other neurophysiological readouts in demonstrating target engagement and pharmacodynamic effects during first in human and Phase 1/2 trials
- How structured patient reported outcomes enrich early datasets by capturing subjective symptom shifts that complement objective biomarker trends
- How fluid biomarkers – from inflammatory to neurodegenerative signatures – can provide quantifiable, mechanistic insight into early biological response and disease modulation
- How late stage failures continue to stem from heterogeneous patient populations and poor endpoint sensitivity, underscoring the critical need for biomarker driven stratification to boost Phase 2/3 success rates
- What 2025–2026 taught us about placebo inflation, highlighted by recent schizophrenia and depression trial outcomes, and how study site variability, digital tools, and speech/physiological biomarkers may mitigate expectation bias
- Why translational gaps persist across muscarinic, psychedelic, and neuroplasticity based mechanisms, and how emerging mechanistic and genomic biomarkers can better link target engagement with clinical effects in Phase 2/3
- How sponsors are redesigning global Phase 2/3 execution—leveraging faster moving regions, adaptive designs, and early signal-detection: to overcome long timelines, recruitment bottlenecks, and historically low CNS trial success rates
- How emerging scientific modalities such as circuit level biomarkers, data integrated platforms, and next generation neuroplastogens are shaping the future landscape of neuropsychiatric innovation
- What investors and R&D leaders look for in early stage assets, including differentiated mechanisms, strong biomarker strategies, and clear pathways to clinical and commercial de risking
- How strategic capital allocation across discovery, translational technologies, and Phase 2/3 ready programs can build sustainable, multi mechanism therapeutic pipelines
- Where the field is heading next, and how cross disciplinary innovation and coordinated investment can accelerate the next transformative wave in neuropsychiatric therapeutics
