Melanie Georgina Lee

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(born 29 July 1958) is an English pharmaceutical industry executive and CEO of LifeArc, succeeding Dave Tapolczay in November 2018.

Career

Research

Lee received an undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of York, working with Simon Hardy, and then a PhD at

National Institute for Medical Research The National Institute for Medical Research (commonly abbreviated to NIMR), was a medical research institute based in Mill Hill, on the outskirts of north London, England. It was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC); In 2016, the NIMR b ...

in London. Lee worked as a

molecular genetics Molecular genetics is a sub-field of biology that addresses how differences in the structures or expression of DNA molecules manifests as variation among organisms. Molecular genetics often applies an "investigative approach" to determine the ...

postdoc, first at

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

on yeast and then from 1985 with Paul Nurse at the ICRF's Lincoln's Inn Laboratories. Nurse's work on the

cell cycle The cell cycle, or cell-division cycle, is the series of events that take place in a cell that cause it to divide into two daughter cells. These events include the duplication of its DNA (DNA replication) and some of its organelles, and sub ...

won him the Nobel Prize, and in his speech he cited Lee's work on finding a human homologue of the yeast gene

cdc2 Cyclin-dependent kinase 1 also known as CDK1 or cell division cycle protein 2 homolog is a highly conserved protein that functions as a serine/threonine protein kinase, and is a key player in cell cycle regulation. It has been highly studied in th ...

. Nurse said of this work that "I suppose the most astonishing thing was the way Melanie Lee in the lab did it by complementation." Lee later recounted being uncomfortable with the competition in the laboratory. In 2003, she was elected a Fellow of the

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to adv ...

Works

Business

Lee was appointed

Chief Executive Officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especial ...

of LifeArc in November 2018. Lee currently serves on the Board of Directors at

Sanofi Sanofi S.A. is a French multinational pharmaceutical and healthcare company headquartered in Paris, France. Originally, the corporation was established in 1973 and merged with Synthélabo in 1999 to form Sanofi-Synthélabo. In 2004, Sanofi-Syn ...

and on the Board of Trustees at the Dementia Research Institute. Previously, she was Chief Scientific Officer of BGT Plc and was the founder and CEO of NightstaRx, a Syncona,

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

company in 2014. She began her pharmaceutical industry career at

Glaxo GSK plc, formerly GlaxoSmithKline plc, is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with global headquarters in London, England. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. GSK is the tent ...

in 1988, leaving academia after she became pregnant. She joined

Celltech Celltech Group plc was a leading British-based biotechnology business based in Slough. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. History Celltech was founded by Gerard Fairtlough in 1980 with fina ...

in 1998 where she was Director of R&D. She held the same role at UCB Pharmaceuticals and was CEO of Syntaxin Ltd from 2010 to 2013. She had Chair and Deputy Chair Trustee appointments at Cancer Research Technology and

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

respectively. She was on the board of Lundbeck and founded the Think10 business advice company. She was an advisor to the 2014–15 Dowling Review of business-university research collaborations.

Awards

In January 2019, Lee was awarded the BIA Lifetime Achievement Award. She received a

in 2009 in respect of her for services to medical science and in 2014, she was named as one of the top 100 "leading practising scientists" in the UK by the Science Council.

Personal life

She is married to Christopher, with whom she lives in London. They have two sons.

References

External links

Syntaxin: Melanie Lee explains their biological platform, based on Botulinum Toxin, and its primary indications
interview with PharmaTelevision, 31 August 2011 * – account of Lee's work with Paul Nurse {{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Melanie Living people Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Alumni of the University of York 1958 births Chief executives in the pharmaceutical industry English molecular biologists