Pharmacology and biotechnology: a career in clinical development

Abstract

I first encountered the discipline of pharmacology at university, where I set out to do a degree in physiology. Thanks to the course unit system at Chelsea College in London, I took a general pharmacology course in my second year, decided that this was for me and subsequently specialized in pharmacology in my final year. I then went on to do my PhD in respiratory pharmacology at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London. I was an br z~iuo pharmacologist, perhaps not so popular these days, but this provided me with a valuable perspective and immediately directed my research toward the aetiology and treatment of diseases. I began with asthma and this broadened to allergic diseases and inflammation and rheumatology, as I progressed through research jobs in the pharmaceutical industry. My first industrial job was with Sandoz where I worked in the respiratory group in Basle. This was an experience in many senses not just work! and provided me with the now rusty rudiments of German. At Sandoz I was fortunate to work in a group that had just taken an asthma drug to registration and this gave me an early insight into the workings of the industry beyond the laboratory clinical trials and product launches, for example.