Life Sciences Advisor

Policy Fellow Alumnus, Centre for Science and Policy

Dr Alan Moodie has over 20 years experience in the discovery, development and manufacturing of medicines. As GSK R&D's MDD Operating Officer, he was accountable for both delivering pipeline-enabling activities for the company's pharmaceutical discovery and development projects, and for co-ordinating many of R&D's external engagement activities.

Alan's team was responsible for managing GSK's links with the key UK and EU industry bodies, Research Councils, other funding agencies and professional associations, and takes the lead on the company's Academic Liaison activities. Alan and his team manage GSK's input into the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), one of the EU's largest public private partnerships, and provide strategic support to the development of a number of the company's other Open Innovation initiatives, including R&D's input to the Stevenage Biosciences Catalyst (SBC), the new Science Park under development at the Stevenage site.

Following a PhD in Microbial Energetics at St Andrews University, Alan joined SmithKline Beecham Manufacturing division in 1990 as a postdoctoral biochemist. Here he led the development of natural product strain improvement projects and manufacturing processes for fermentation derived actives including marketed products Bactroban and Augmentin. He joined SmithKline Beecham R&D in 1997 as a Project Manager, then Project Leader, progressing antibacterial development from pre-clinical through clinical development to file and launch. In this role he gained invaluable first-hand experience of what it means to develop a medicine and to work with partner organisations.

Following the formation of GlaxoSmithKline he joined the newly-formed R&D Alliance Management group in 2002 and from 2004 to 2008 he was Vice President and Head of Alliance Management and a member of the R&D Business Development Executive Committee. In 2008 he joined the GSK Drug Discovery organisation as Drug Discovery Operating Officer and his responsibilities were expanded in 2010 to cover the company's late-stage development activities, a role that now includes the influencing of the external environment for R&D.