The Pharmadelic Experience podcast explores career opportunities in the life sciences sector. Each episode will focus on a different career field, so you can learn what they do, how they got there and what challenges they have encountered along the way.
Hear the Latest Episode
Listen and Subscribe
Episodes
Domas Urniežius
Pharmacy Student and Technology Sales Team Lead
December 2020
Watch the Instagram Live replay here.
Rhys Llewellyn
Pharmacy Student and Supply Chain Intern
November 2020
Rhys is a final year MPharm student at the University of Birmingham, who has spent 2 terms on the BPSA Executive and completed an Industrial Placement year with GSK. He has accepted a pre-registration year with North Bristol Trust.
Héctor Gálvez García
Medical Science Liaison
August 2020
Since a very young age, Héctor has been passionate about understanding the why of things. That is why he studied Biology and continued on a Masters degree, where he had his first opportunity to have an overview of how the Pharmaceutical Industry works.
At that point, he decided to pursue a PhD in Developmental Biology in order to work in Medical Affairs.
After completing his PhD, he had the opportunity to transition into a Marketing department, as a Product Manager, in a large Medical Device company and after this short experience, he moved to a Consulting Firm to continue developing his skills in Project Management. Despite of the wonderful path he was on, he realised how far away he was from his Why. Therefore, he refocused his career to Medical Affairs and since then has worked as a Medical Science Liaison in different pathologies and different regions in Spain.
Congresses, meetings, always pushing boundaries to learn everything from every experience, and sometimes a bit of luck was what has allowed him to transition into the world of Medical Affairs.
Karandeep Singh Badwal
Quality and Regulatory Affairs Manager
July 2020
Karandeep studied Pharmaceutical & Cosmetic Science at De Montfort University in the UK. It is from this he developed his interest within Quality & Regulatory Affairs and
hence went on to study a masters in Pharmaceutical Quality by Design. However, despite his educational background, he went on almost immediately to pursue a Regulatory Affairs & Quality career in Medical Devices. He has worked his way up very quickly and became a contractor Consultant. He managed to achieve this without any formal network or mentors in the industry.
Rebecca Godfrey
Founder / Team & Leadership Strategist
June 2020
Rebecca Godfrey is the founder of Etheo Limited, a Team & Leadership Transformation consultancy, established in 2017 with the aim of ‘Changing the way highly regulated industries operate’.
Rebecca is a scientist by background having completed a PhD in Immunology at the University of Cambridge. Since leaving academic research, Rebecca’s career has given her the opportunity to build and develop a successful drug safety consultancy business, work with and lead colleagues from more than 90 countries, live and work abroad and lead organisations and groups in roles ranging from Company Director of a small consultancy to Global Head and Global Director roles in two of the world’s top 10 pharma companies.
Having thoroughly enjoyed a fruitful and successful career so far, Rebecca took the leap to set up Etheo bringing her wealth of business experience, outstanding leadership skills, strategy and process development expertise and passion for meeting new challenges to support individuals and leaders build cohesive, high performing teams with a focus on operational excellence.
Martina Lauš
Digital Medical Affairs
May 2020
Martina Lauš works in the pharmaceutical industry, in Medical Affairs function. She graduated in 2017 as a Master of Pharmacy from the University of Zagreb in Croatia, where she is from.
During her studies, Martina was a Croatian pharmaceutical representative in the international community and is still very passionate about the role of non-profit organisations in healthcare, for which she has won three international recognitions until today. Martina has a big interest is public health and differences among the international healthcare systems, which drew her to build a career in the industry.
Martina started to work for Novartis while she was still at the university as an intern in Quality Assurance, after which she moved to Quality Intelligence and relocated to Basel, Switzerland. Today, she works on digital projects in Medical Affairs at the global position, still in Novartis.
Although being a pharmacist by training, Martina has always had interest in social sciences and has recently got admitted to London School of Economics to study for her second Master’s Degree with a focus on Health Economics and management in cardiovascular diseases.
Fernanda Manhães
Regulatory Affairs Manager
April 2020
Fernanda holds a degree of Industrial Pharmacy from the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Brazil, including a one year exchange in the University of Claude Bernard – Lyon 1 in France. Graduated with a work experience in Research Lab, Hospital Pharmacy and Regulatory Affairs in the pharma industry,
she decided to jump back to Europe to follow her career as a Regulatory Affairs Specialist in Italy. After going deep in the Technology topic related to Regulatory Affairs in Germany, she went back to the pharma industry in Switzerland as Regulatory Affairs Manager, focusing on implementing strategy of orphan drugs registration in US and Swiss markets.
Donal McConnell
Solution Consultant and Practice Manager
March 2020
Donal McConnell is a Practice Manager of the Consultant Development Program at Veeva Systems in Barcelona. Donal graduated from Pharmacy at Trinity College Dublin in 2010 before qualifying as a pharmacist at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland.
While working as a pharmacist he founded PharmaBuddy, used by over 4000 Irish pharmacists, with the purpose of helping community pharmacists share knowledge and educate each other.
His interest in Health IT pulled him in the direction of Veeva where he has held the role of Solution Consultant and now Practice Manager.
Janko Ignjatović, PhD, MBA
Senior Scientist and Project Manager
February 2020
Moreover, his curiosity and motivation to contribute to science and healthcare led him to further expand his expertise and professional development within pharmaceutical companies GSK and Novartis. Furthermore, during his postgraduate development he was declared as individual winner of Regional BioCamp, a forum connecting academics and industry in Ljubljana capital of Slovenia, thus he gained the right to participate in the Global BioCamp which was organised in headquarters of pharmaceutical company Novartis in Basel, Switzerland. There he was selected as an individual winner of the global Novartis BioCamp 2014. For this achievement he was awarded a professional training and a visit at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in Beijing and Shanghai in the People’s Republic of China.
Motivated to continue with his passion to foster application of academic knowledge in the industrial field and give his contribution to shaping the healthcare, he pursued a career of research scientist in Novartis global drug development department for biopharmaceutical drugs in Mengeš, Slovenia.
In addition to working in pharmaceutical industry, he enrolled and completed an additional doctorate studies in the field of Biotechnology of the Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, where the primary focus of his research is protein aggregation and its potential immunogenicity.
Janko continued with further personal and professional development in the field of management, leadership, psychology, economics and project management within courses in prestigious International Executive Development Centre (IEDC) in Bled, Slovenia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and American association of Neurolinguistics programming in USA. Currently, he is finishing Masters in Business Administration (MBA) studies at the School of Economics and Business in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Andrei Baiceanu, Ph.D.
Regulatory and R&D Consultant
April 2019
Andrei graduated as a pharmacist from the “Iuliu Hatieganu” University for Medicine and Pharmacy in Cluj-Napoca and holds a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the same university.
During his doctoral studies he worked in Paris at the Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers, a research hub affiliated with the Sorbonne University, focusing on liver disease pathogenesis (NAFLD, NASH, liver fibrosis). Andrei currently works for one of the Big Four, specialising on the life sciences sector and working on projects with big pharmaceutical companies. His experience is primarily focused on projects in the R&D and Regulatory areas.
Orsolya Kereki
Technology Associate Consultant
March 2019
Orsi is MSc in Biochemical Engineering, with a lot international experience. Growing up in the US, UK and Belgium, as well as being Vice President of IAESTE Hungary (International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience) helped her both personally and professionally.
Having obtained organisational skills by her contribution to IAESTE Hungary, and scientific background from Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Orsi started her career as a Regulatory Affairs Manager for Procter&Gamble in Hungary with focus on registration procedures for cosmetics and household care products on a country level.
Her experience at P&G was quite exciting, however Orsi wanted to do something more dynamic. Seeing Veeva as a perfect fit for her, she started a new exciting journey in the R&D Consultant Development Programme, focusing on the implementation of Regulatory projects.
Stefan Grgić
R&D Intern
February 2019
Stefan has recently graduated as a Pharmacist in Serbia and is continuing his research project in Dubai, UAE. In this episode, we talked about his, still ongoing, internship in Dubai at the Research Institute for Health and Medical Sciences.
We were discussing his beginnings, his interest in science, him finding the opportunity as well as not only moving abroad, but also moving to a place with completely different culture and life philosophy.
Stefan passionately shared the thrill of working in R&D, especially in Metabolomics and Drug Analysis and Development.
From perspective of Pharmaceutical Industry, Stefan emphasised the fact that the UAE is a newly developed country, providing him the opportunity to be introduced to the other aspects of R&D.
Hala Jawad
Community Pharmacist and Public Health Ambassador
January 2019
Hala Jawad, a pharmacist who’s passionate about all things pharmacy! She Has been involved in many other activities outside of a traditional pharmacy career. Hala is the co-founder of “AskHala.com”.
She has tried her hand at some media-related performances, she has worked in a community pharmacy setting and as a GP practice pharmacist. Every role has been different, but equally vital to her learning process. she has developed a special interest in public health and improving patient outcomes. She’s a member of the International Forum for Wellbeing in Pregnancy (IFWIP) advisory board, Associate member for MORPh training and Panel Member at UK Diabetes Network.
She has received some accolades, such as being recognised as the very first Pharma Face, she has been referred to as The Brighton Titan.
Ex roles and experiences includes:
Foundation Champion, GP practice pharmacist mentor for the RPS, public health moderator for the RPS network and she was on a steering group for the RPS in Surrey.
Stephen Messham
Pharmaceutical Scientist
December 2018
Stephen is a Pharmacist on the Future Leaders Programme in Pharmaceutical Science at GSK. After completing a summer placement at AstraZeneca in 2015 Stephen completed a hospital and industry split Pre-Registration Training post at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and GSK in Harlow and registered as a Pharmacist in 2017.
Stephen is currently finishing his first rotation in Materials Science in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain in GSK and will be moving into an Informatics based role in 2019.
We talked about his beginnings, how he got interested working in the pharmaceutical industry, we then focused on internships that he did as a student as well as his pre-registration year in Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals and GSK
After registering as a pharmacist, Stephen had to make an important decision whether to do a PhD or continue his journey in the pharmaceutical industry. He decided to stay with the GSK where he now works as a Pharmaceutical Science Associate, focusing on materials science, as the first of the 3 rotations of the Future Leaders Programme.
Throughout a podcast, Stephen shares a lot of useful advice on applying for jobs, how to prepare for the interviews and how to take the full advantage of the opportunities at the start of your career, which I am convinced will help you kickstart your professional journey.
Bruno Rački
Regulatory Affairs Intern
November 2018
Bruno is a fifth and final year student of the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Zagreb. He was very active and involved in the work of several student associations such as EPSA and IPSF, but most prominently as a president of Croatian Pharmacy and Medical Biochemistry Students’ Association (CPSA).
During his studies, he lived in Switzerland and worked as an intern in Pharma Technical Regulatory department of F. Hoffmann-La Roche. Empowered by this internship, he returned to Croatia and became the president of CPSA, as well as got involved into organising many new and innovative projects. Being an EPSA soft-skills trainer, he has over 50 hours of training in 5 countries. Driven by ambition and will to make an impact in the world, he serves as a great motivator and mentor to his fellow colleagues.
Vilius Savickas
Clinical Pharmacist, Researcher and Academic
October 2018
Vilius is a clinical pharmacist with a specialist interest in Stroke and Cardiology. He graduated with a Master of Pharmacy degree from Kingston University followed by a Postgraduate Diploma in General Pharmacy Practice (Hospital) at the University of Kent and a Master of Clinical Research at King’s College London.
Vilius is currently pursuing a PhD at the Medway School of Pharmacy (University of Kent) under Prof Alistair Mathie’s, Dr Sukvinder Bhamra’s, Dr Emma Veale’s and Dr Sarah Corlett’s supervision. His research focuses on the public health roles of registered pharmacy professionals in primary care settings. It specifically explores the role of clinical pharmacists in the detection of atrial fibrillation.
This episode will focus on his versatile career journey and is packed with practical advice.
Janko Ignjatović holds a Master of Pharmacy degree from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade in Serbia. Upon finishing master studies, he continued his academic and scientific development by enrolling in doctoral studies at the module of Drug Analysis at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Belgrade, Serbia.