James F. Howard Jr, MD

James F. Howard Jr, MD, is a professor of neurology, medicine, and allied health at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, where he is also director of the Myasthenia Gravis Clinical Trials and Translational Research Program. He is the former James F. Howard Distinguished Professor of Neuromuscular Disease and former chief of the Neuromuscular Disorders Division at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

Dr Howard’s focus is on disorders of neuromuscular transmission, including diagnosis, management, and their immune abnormalities, with the goal of bringing novel therapeutic agents to the bedside. Most recently, he has been involved in the clinical trial development of complement inhibitors, FcRn blockers, and CAR T-cell therapy for the treatment of autoimmune myasthenia gravis, leading to the first 5 drugs ever approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for this disease. Dr Howard maintains extensive clinical and physiological data on nearly 1700 patients with myasthenia gravis.