Profile

I am a communicator who went into a science career a while back, and learned loads about biology and research. I work in a small biotechnology company which is producing medicines for young children who have life-threatening diseases, but I’m changing jobs soon to work for a bigger pharmaceutical company. My boyfriend is a scientist too, and last year we moved from the UK to Denmark, so now we live in Copenhagen. When I’m not communicating science, I enjoy running and training my one-year old puppy to do new tricks. When she’s old enough she’ll be my running partner, but for now I’m marathon training by myself.

Orphazyme is a small biotechnology company which specialises in ‘orphan’ diseases. These are rare diseases, often affecting young people, which don’t have a cure. We are working on developing medicines for some of these rare diseases, to hopefully save people’s lives.

My role in the company is to help people to understand what our scientists and clinical researchers are doing, and the results they are producing. Developing drugs is extremely expensive, so we rely on investors to pay for the research, and I help to show them why investing in our science is a good idea, using data and evidence to present the best possible case. Also, I interact with groups who represent the patients suffering from these terrible diseases, to keep them up-to-date with our progress and help understand how we can meet their needs.

I get up at seven every morning, and the first job of the day is to walk the puppy.

In Copenhagen, the most common way to get about is by bike, so once I’ve cycled to the office, I have a cup of tea and eat my breakfast at my desk.

I spend a lot of my time answering emails and preparing talks or presentations. I also help my colleagues who don’t speak English as their native language to phrase things in the best possible way.

After eating lunch with the entire company, I often have skype meetings with patient representatives or other professionals around the world (sometimes I have to stay late, or get up early to talk to them, depending on their timezone).

I have an afternoon cup of tea and then try to get any remaining jobs finished before I head back home to the puppy 🙂