David Charles Rees (born 1958) CChem, FRSC is a chemist whose main research interest is discovering new medicines.He is Chief Scientific Officer at Astex Pharmaceuticals Cambridge UK, a biotechnology company focussed on Fragment Based Drug Discovery.In 2003 David was hired by Astex to lead the chemistry team, and became Chief Scientific Officer in 2017. Three anti-cancer agents were created in research involving David: ribociclib (Astex Novartis collaboration) and erdafitinib (Astex Janssen collaboration) and the anaesthetic agent sugammadex (Organon, Merck) which had global sales of US$917 million in 2018.David was President of the Organic Division from 2010 to 2013 of the Royal Society of Chemistry and was later elected as a Trustee of the RSC (2015-2019). He is a Director of Ashanti Development, a charity that promotes clean water and sanitation in Ghana.