Name:
Dr Daren Austin OBE
Organisation:
GlaxoSmithKline
Year elected:
2022
Primary professional setting:
Industry
Daren first trained in Theoretical Physics, before moving to Clinical Pharmacology by way of a Wellcome Trust Training Fellowship in Biomathematics. He has spent over 20 years at GSK working on the Translational Pharmacology of both small and large molecules in multiple therapeutic areas. Highlights include the development of inhaled beta agonists (including volanterol), the application of pharmacological principles to move anti-CD20 therapies from Oncology to low doses for the treatment of autoimmune disease (for which he was awarded the 2021 Sir James Black Award for Drug Discovery and Development), and the approval of the anti-SARS-CoV2 antibody sotrovimab for the treatment of COVID19. When not working on Clinical Pharmacology, he applies his pharmacometrics skills elsewhere, including athletic doping cases (notably for the cyclist Chris Froome), and the analysis of the SARS-CoV2 pandemic (for which he was made OBE in 2020).