Science can change our world for the better

In our industry, we are lucky that our science can sometimes be translated into medicines that have the potential to transform the lives of millions of patients.

I have been fascinated with science from a young age and although, as I got older, I realised that my enjoyment of science could one day become a career, I didn’t really have any idea where it would take me.

So, I feel incredibly fortunate to be where I am today, working in the best job in the world with some of the smartest and brightest scientists in the world.

It is with enormous surprise and pride to have been awarded a knighthood by Her Majesty The Queen in the 2020 New Year’s Honours in recognition of my services to UK science.

I am enormously humbled to be recognised in this way and an incredible honour not just for me but for my family and all the fantastic people I have worked with throughout my career.

MAKING WHAT WE DO PERSONAL

Being awarded such an honour is a time for reflection and I was asked recently what personal values have guided me along my scientific journey.

Hard work is definitely up there, quite a bit of luck, taking opportunities when they arose at the right time, not being afraid to fail or succeed and most importantly working with the very best people and teams around the world.

In fact, I think the values which drive me personally are the same as the principles of good science - being rigorous, seeking the truth, challenging and learning and ensuring I continue to challenge myself – to take risk and to venture into the unknown and to do the right thing.

There is no point taking the easy route to just get the ‘yes’ answers you want – my experience has shown me that if you do that, you’ll end up making lots of mistakes and wasting lots of money.

THE UK AS A SCIENCE POWERHOUSE

Being recognised for services to UK science is wonderful.

Although I am of Greek descent, I was born here in the UK and I know it has one of the strongest and most productive healthcare and life sciences industries in the world.

I am proud to have started my scientific career in this country and to have played a small part in fostering a thriving life sciences eco-system here.

At AstraZeneca, we are fully committed to what can be achieved in this country.

We are collaborating with some of the brightest minds on pioneering research and we have colleagues from around 70 countries working for us here.

Our investment in a new R&D Centre in Cambridge, our global corporate headquarters since 2016, builds on a 25-year heritage in the city.

The power of our physical proximity to colleagues in academia, healthcare and industry creates an exciting environment where ideas and talent can be shared to drive truly ground-breaking innovation.

EARLY SCIENCE INNOVATION DRIVING NEW MEDICINES

There is nothing more motivating or inspiring than to be working towards the hugely important goal of creating new medicines for people who desperately need them.

It really is what gets me up in the morning, knowing every time my teams and I follow where the science takes us, we get closer to developing new and more molecules to solve some of humankind’s most devastating conditions and diseases.

This innovation is made all the more remarkable when you consider just how difficult it is to discover any new medicine.

It doesn’t just require exceptional talent, remarkable teamwork and resilient teams – it most importantly needs a real hunger to learn from our mistakes in order to improve what we do, every single day.

CONTINUING TO PUSH THE BOUNDARIES OF SCIENCE

As we start 2020, a whole new decade, the scientific promise is immense.

I have been lucky enough to not just witness, but also lead, many truly life-changing scientific advances in recent years.

It seems timely at the start of a new decade to look at where I feel medical science will advance in the coming years to improve patients’ lives.

Advanced analytics and machine learning – artificial intelligence (AI) – have huge potential to transform R&D across many areas.

It is still early days, but the generation of genomic and multi-omic data is becoming the norm.

This data is also being combined with electronic health records giving us unprecedented access to complex datasets that will help accelerate our understanding of disease beyond anything we have understood before.

It could not only help us improve the design of our molecules and medicines but help us identify and diagnose patients more accurately and may even help us carry out our clinical trials more effectively.

We hope all of this means faster and better medicines which are more targeted and more effective than ever before.

CONSIGNING SILOED SCIENCE TO THE PAST

This next decade is all about integration and collaboration.

As big data and AI start to take a more central role in R&D, I think it will be important for us to integrate computer scientists, physicists and mathematicians into our multidisciplinary teams, alongside the researchers who are more traditionally involved in medical and biopharmaceutical sciences.

I think we will also start to see a lot more scientists with a hybrid background across both the life sciences and data sciences – consigning the traditional ‘siloed’ science to the history books.

Another area of interest is the emergence of new drug modalities, which means we have an array of tools to use on challenging drug targets, previously thought to be ‘undruggable’.

We want our scientists to be able to work on any biological target, so we need to look beyond the limits of small molecules and monoclonal antibodies – drug modalities such as CRISPR, PROTACS, inhaled mRNA, in vivo expressed biologics and cell therapies to name but a few.

We still have a long way to go but, looking at recent developments, I am optimistic about the future trajectory of our industry. It’s thriving and will continue to thrive with these incredible new advances.

We are at a point where we can actually start to think about finding cures or, at the very least, effective treatments for some of the world’s deadliest and most difficult-to-treat diseases which is a very exciting place to be.