Before joining Dementia Discovery Fund as a Venture Partner in 2025, Charles Large spent decades as a hands-on CNS drug hunter at Glaxo/GSK, becoming an expert in voltage-gated ion channel modulators through work on drugs like lamotrigine and retigabine, and he still runs Autifony, the company he co-founded in 2011, which he says was the first to run a Phase II trial in age-related hearing loss and to study Kv3 modulators in cochlear implant users. His work spans schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, major depression, hearing loss, and tinnitus, and he has authored more than 70 papers, book chapters, and patents on ion channel modulators, a track record that connects back to DDF through Autifony's 2017 support from the fund for its approach to dementia treatment.