Sir Menelas (Mene) Pangalos
Sir Mene Pangalos, PhD FRSB FMedSci, was appointed by AstraZeneca as Executive Vice-President, R&D BioPharmaceuticals in January 2019. He was responsible for BioPharmaceutical R&D from discovery through to late-stage development covering Cardiovascular, Renal, Metabolism, Respiratory, Inflammation, Autoimmune, Microbial Science and Neuroscience areas. Prior to this, Mene served as Executive Vice-President of AstraZeneca’s IMED Biotech Unit and Global Business Development. Mene retired from AstraZeneca in April 2024.
After joining AstraZeneca in 2010, Mene led the transformation of R&D productivity through the development and implementation of the “5R” framework resulting in a greater than four-fold increase in success rates compared to industry averages. In parallel, he championed an open approach to working with academic and other external partners, changing the nature of academic-industry collaboration. Mene previously held senior R&D roles at Wyeth and GSK.
Mene holds Honorary Doctorates from Glasgow University and Imperial College, London, is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society of Biology and Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. He co-chairs the UK Life Sciences Council Expert Group on Innovation, Clinical Research and Data and is a member of the Life Sciences Industrial Strategy Implementation Board. He is also on the Boards of The Francis Crick Institute, The Judge Business School, Cambridge University and Dizal Pharma and is a member of the Life Sciences Vision Advisory Group. Mene was awarded the 2019 Prix Galien Medal, Greece for his scientific research and named Executive of the Year at the 2019 Scrip Awards. In 2019, Mene was awarded the honour of a Knighthood by Her Majesty The Queen for his services to UK science.
Mene also oversaw the creation of AstraZeneca’s new Global R&D Centre in Cambridge – a state of the art facility designed to stimulate collaborative scientific innovation and which will play an important role in the future success of the UK life science industry which opened in 2021.
From the start of 2020, Mene led and oversaw AstraZeneca’s R&D response to COVID-19; maintaining existing clinical trials and delivery of medicines to patients, responding to the UK government’s call for supporting our national testing effort, and discovering and developing new preventative and treatment approaches to the disease. This work involved partnering with Oxford University in the global development of a vaccine and ensuring broad and equitable access at no profit during the pandemic, the discovery and development of a long-acting antibody combination for those who can’t be vaccinated, as well as exploring our existing portfolio as potential treatment options against the disease.
In 2022, Mene was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, having made ‘outstanding contributions as an academic neuroscientist and a pharmaceutical leader who has transformed AstraZeneca’s R&D pipeline’.
