Winner 2024: Elias Eriksson, Sweden

Elias Eriksson is professor of pharmacology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, where he trained in Arvid Carlsson’s department. He first came to prominence with his work on panic, taking on conventional wisdom to argue that the beneficial effects of tricyclics derived from their impact on serotonin reuptake and showing that the efficacy of tricyclics increased the stronger their effect on the serotonin synapse became. Supporting his senior colleague, psychiatrist Kjell Modigh, he contributed to get panic disorder added to clomipramine’s label – the first approval of an antidepressant for panic – and clinically implemented, hence setting clomipramine on a path to became Europe’s treatment of choice for panic disorder, until its replacement by SSRIs.

Read the press release