Samir Koirala
Vice President & Head of Neurobiology Research Alkermes
Seminars
Tuesday 15th September 2026
Interpreting Insomnia Signals as a Sleep Biomarker Across Mood Disorders
1:30 pm
- Differentiating insomnia subtypes (difficulty initiating vs. maintaining sleep vs. early awakening) and their relevance as biomarkers across depression and anxiety
- How insomnia signatures may stratify patients, predict symptom trajectories, or serve as endpoints across mood disorder trials
- Opportunities and pitfalls when using sleep related EEG and behavioral signals to map emotional blunting, anhedonia, and anxiety phenotypes
- Integrating clinical, sponsor, academic, and technology vendor perspectives to advance insomnia as a validated, scalable biomarker
Tuesday 15th September 2026
Translating Circuit Biology into Biomarkers: Integrating EEG, Electrophysiology, & Neural Signatures in Drug Development
2:30 pm
- Leveraging EEG and complementary neurophysiology approaches to map circuit-level modulation and therapeutic mechanisms
- Combining immediate-early-gene readouts, single-unit recordings, and local field potentials to construct multi-modal circuit signatures
- Building translational frameworks that bridge preclinical circuit modulation to human biomarker endpoints
- Advancing biomarker-driven decision-making to de-risk development and guide dose selection, target engagement, and clinical translatability
Tuesday 15th September 2026
Panel Discussion: Evaluating Unmet Needs in Sleep: Navigating EEG Utility & Limitations Across Complex Sleep Architecture
3:15 pm
- Defining which facets of sleep (onset, maintenance, early awakening, quality, or EEG specific signals) truly matter as clinical biomarkers
- Understanding the practical and scientific limits of EEG in psychiatric sleep research: specificity, invasiveness, and placebo susceptibility
- How sponsors (orexin programs, sleep promoting or circadian targeting drugs) and EEG tech vendors interpret sleep architecture in different disease contexts
- Identifying core unmet needs in insomnia and sleep dysregulation across mood and psychiatric disorders, and what measurement innovation is required
Tuesday 15th September 2026
Panel Discussion: Evaluating Unmet Needs in Sleep: Navigating EEG Utility & Limitations Across Complex Sleep Architecture
3:15 pm
- Defining which facets of sleep (onset, maintenance, early awakening, quality, or EEG specific signals) truly matter as clinical biomarkers
- Understanding the practical and scientific limits of EEG in psychiatric sleep research: specificity, invasiveness, and placebo susceptibility
- How sponsors (orexin programs, sleep promoting or circadian targeting drugs) and EEG tech vendors interpret sleep architecture in different disease contexts
- Identifying core unmet needs in insomnia and sleep dysregulation across mood and psychiatric disorders, and what measurement innovation is required
Wednesday 16th September 2026
Harnessing Orexin Biology to Advance Sleep Regulation & Novel Neuropsychiatric Therapeutics
11:45 am
- Illuminating the mechanistic role of orexin pathways in stabilizing sleep-wake architecture and behavioural states
- Applying emerging orexin targeted strategies to address unmet needs across sleep related and broader neuropsychiatric disorders
- Integrating molecular, pharmacologic, and translational insights to shape next generation therapeutic candidates
- Exploring how expanding orexin centric biology opens doors to new indications beyond traditional mood and psychotic disorders
