Mario Saltarelli received his Bachelor of Science from the University of Illinois, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He went on to earn an MD and PhD in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins, where he also completed his residency in Neurology and became board certified.

He spent seven years on the faculty of Emory University School of Medicine in the Department of Medicine before joining Pfizer’s Groton Laboratories, where he led the CNS Early Clinical Development Group for seven years. He later moved to Abbott Laboratories, serving as Divisional Vice President of Neuroscience.

Since 2022, Saltarelli has served as Chief Medical Officer of GABA Therapeutics, which is developing GRX-917, an anxiolytic and deuterated form of etifoxine that promotes the production of neurosteroids. He holds 14 patents related to CNS drug discovery.