Lift Up Journeys: Women in Life Sciences

In this episode of Lift Up Journeys, we were joined by the incredible Arunima Dhar. She is the Vice President of Supply Chain at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Arunima has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and consumer goods industries. She has global experience managing large investment programmes and delivering operational turnarounds, and she is adept at delivering complex and large-scale transformations. Arunima joined us to talk about her impressive career journey, as well as how she dealt with relocating for her job and any advice she has for others, how to implement culture within a team and any barriers she has faced. Some of the highlights of the conversation include: "If you get an opportunity to relocate, take it, just you know, I hate to use the Nike tagline. But I always say just do it, because it opens up your breadth of experience, you learn a lot more about the culture. I think it makes you a better leader." "It's the mission. It's the sense of purpose that drives people. And you can see that in my teams, you can see that across the organisation, it was all around the patient at the end of the supply chain for us." "I actually now look for that trait, when I'm recruiting is how comfortable are you with ambiguity with a very imperfect data? Can you make a decision? Can you learn from it if you've screwed up and just move on?" Tune in to hear from an incredible woman in life sciences.

In this episode of Lift Up Journeys, Katy was joined by the amazing Marta Parmar. She is the Chief Quality, Regulatory and Pharmacovigilance officer at Ferrer.

Marta has over 22 years of combined R&D and regulatory experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She's focused her work on driving registration and enabling early access of innovative medicines in a variety of therapeutic areas, including oncology, neuroscience, cardiovascular, and renal conditions to markets worldwide.

She joined us to talk about her career journey, as well as how she has supported the Life Sciences industry outside of her career, and advice for women looking to take the next step.

Some of the highlights of the conversation include: 

"I think what what really also impacted me was the, you know, the the minority of female scientists."

"Smaller companies are fantastic to get an exposure to a variety of areas and to, you know, to be able to get your hands dirty with with a lot of different projects and different experiences."

"Nurture your network, build it, nurture it. Make sure that you work on your relationships with your co-workers, have support, you know, ask for help."

Tune in to hear from an incredible woman in life sciences. 

In this episode of Lift Up Journeys, we were joined by the fantastic Linda Bowen. She is the Executive Director - chief of staff and head of the regulatory centres of excellence at Seagen, a global biotechnology company dedicated to developing revolutionary therapies with real impact.

Linda has over 40 years of experience in the Biopharma industry, with 30 of those years in the regulatory space. During this time, she has won several awards and has given back by mentoring several up-and-coming regulatory professionals. 

She joined us to talk about her fascinating professional history, as well as the differences between working with big pharma and smaller biotechs, networking tips, and Linda's experience in mentoring professionals.  

Some of the highlights of the conversation include: 

"Not all of us in regulatory start in regulatory, it happens very rarely. Many of us come from the laboratory. Many of us come from Quality Assurance. People come from clinical development, they come from commercial, they come from toxicology, they come from all walks of life.”

“At the bigger companies, you're a number, it's just the way it is. Even if you have a great manager, you know, there's many layers.”

“My thing is that everything that I did, I learned something, and I repurposed those skills to this day that I learned 40 years ago."

Tune in to hear from an incredible woman in life sciences. 

In Episode 5 of the Lift Up Journeys podcast, we spoke with Donielle Johnson, the Vice President Global Regulatory Affairs in Medical Devices at Bausch + Lomb, about her career journey through the life sciences space.

Donielle has worked at a number of leading companies in the life sciences, including Medtronic, Philips and Johnson & Johnson. During the podcast, she shared the importance of building meaningful relationships and the impact mentoring has had on her career. 

She also spoke about how important it is to adjust your mindset to the situation you find yourself in. 

Highlights of the conversation include:

“I always tell people, ‘Yes, I'm very smart. Yes, I'm a hard worker. But in this industry, it's about relationships.’”

“Companies are there to serve their best interests and their bottom line. You have to look out for your best interest and your bottom line.”

“Even in 2023, gender and race matter… there are still barriers, and the glass ceiling does still exist for women and minorities.”

Tune in to hear from another inspiring woman in the life sciences.  

In Episode 4 of the Lift Up Journeys podcast we were joined by Melisa Medrano, the Director of Talent at Sonoma Biotherapeutics, a company that’s developing engineered regulatory T cell (Treg) therapies to treat serious autoimmune and inflammatory diseases driven by an imbalanced immune system.

Melisa is also active in improving diversity and inclusion across the industry, as well as developing new ways to help her team develop their careers within the life sciences. 

She joined us to share her incredible professional history and share the wisdom she’s accumulated along the way. 

Highlights of the conversation include:

“One of the biggest things for me in industry was getting that exposure to the drug development process, but also just learning about other functions and how they fit into the drug development process.”

“We talked about the impact that affirmative action going away will have on diversity recruitment efforts.”

“Leverage your network. Just this week, I talked to a couple people who I've worked with before, and who said, ‘Hey, I'm starting my search. I know, you don't have a job for me, necessarily. But can we talk?’”

Join us to learn from another incredible advocate for diversity in the life sciences. 

In episode 3 of Lift Up Journeys we were joined by Lisa Stehno-Bittel, the President and Founder of Likarda, a biotech company that’s developing enabling technologies to transform the way cell therapies are delivered and optimised. 

Lisa shared her story of founding a start-up straight from academia, as well as her experiences that led her to be named as one of the Top 50 Women Leaders in Missouri by Women We Admire. 

This conversation includes highlights like: 

“That's when the university said to me, ‘This doesn't look like academic research anymore. This looks more like a business.’”

“Having a young workforce, I think, keeps me engaged and moving forward.”

“My mentors and supervisors were all women, and I hadn't thought about how important that was until later in life.”

Listen in to learn from an inspiring woman in the life sciences industry. 

In this episode of Lift Up Journeys we were joined by the wonderful Debra Webster, who is the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Aditum Bio, an innovative biotechnology research company that’s making medication more accessible. 

Debra has over 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical research and the regulatory environment, giving her a wealth of knowledge in the life sciences space.

She joined us to talk about her fascinating professional history, as well as sharing how she juggled personal and professional responsibilities while raising a family, and the power of community. 

Some of the highlights of the conversation include: 

“You graduate with a degree in biology, you think, ‘Oh, my, I'm gonna be a doctor, I'm going to be a dentist.’ And the opportunities for other careers are not nearly quite so evident.”

“As you're moving through your career, always look for opportunities to mentor someone who's just coming into the field.”

“Everyone's so busy with their schedules, but it is important to try and maintain those relationships and expand on them.”

“Once my middle child went off to college, and the second one was ending his high school career, that's when I went back to the workforce, in an office setting, because I really did miss that.”

Tune in to hear from an incredible woman in life sciences. 

In Episode 1 of the Lift Up Journeys podcast, we spoke with Eylem Demir Sentürk, the Founder & CEO of Women on Stage, about the work she does to mentor and support women in the life sciences industry in Switzerland.

Eyelem has a fascinating background, having started her professional career in private banking before moving into the life sciences 22 years ago, thanks to a desire to make more of an impact with her work. 

She also spoke about her experiences as a refugee and the impact that had on her opportunities and outlook. 

Highlights of the conversation include:

“Sometimes my managers or senior directors were really surprised. ‘How can it be that someone without a scientific degree can propose something like this?’”

“I was not promoted for seven years, almost. And this is something that not only I was experiencing, but a lot of women have been experiencing.”

“Human rights were in the centre of my life”

Join us to hear from another inspiring woman in the life sciences.