2024 Access to Medicines Internship Spotlight
Roivant Sciences, Roivant Social Ventures (RSV), and Elutia -- led by CEO and RSV Advisory Board member C. Randal Mills-- have partnered to host the Access to Medicines Internship and Fellowship Program, providing real-world drug development experience to talented PharmD students who are passionate about leveraging their career development to expand healthcare access to underserved patient groups.
Elutia is pioneering the future of patient care through their proprietary drug-eluting biomaterial platforms. Elutia is addressing the pressing challenges that can arise from medical device implant failures by combatting post-surgical complications that impact patient outcomes and escalate medical costs. This approach ensures patients not only recover, but thrive without compromise.
This summer Derek Bassett served as a Corporate Strategy Intern at Elutia, where he worked on:
Strategic Business Development: On his first day, Derek joined Elutia's CEO and CFO at an investor conference. He gained exposure to how financing rounds are structured and how investors evaluate businesses. Ultimately he participated in a successful secondary public offering, raising $13.3 million. Within his first two weeks, he joined Elutia's Sales and Leadership team at a pivotal industry conference. Not only did he interact with physician champions and potential customers, but he also used his pharmaceutical expertise to train their Sales team for the launch of a new combination drug delivery-medical device.
Leadership Meeting Facilitation: Derek joined Elutia’s leadership team for daily check-in meetings and served as the facilitator of weekly strategic meetings, where he was responsible for ensuring critical discussion topics were adequately covered and important decisions were captured. Derek gained first-hand experience in the value of team alignment, trust, and collaboration at a leadership level.
Operational Site Selection and Launch Planning: Derek was entrusted with analyzing complex medical device regulations and capturing key requirements for Elutia's manufacturing facility and process. He played a critical role in evaluating operating sites, including capturing important data during in-person site visits. Within his first month, Derek joined the Quality team to observe an FDA facility audit, giving him insight into a critical aspect of how medical device safety and efficacy are regulated. Derek also engaged with key vendors and partners, ensuring an effective, timely, and cost-efficient site launch.
We sat down with Derek to learn more about what drives his work and how his summer internship at Elutia has impacted his career development.
What type of impact do you hope to create with your work?
"I decided pharmacy was for me based on a passion I have for helping others. The pharmaceutical industry is in a unique position to help an unbelievable amount of people and this potential influenced my interest to get involved in drug development. With the abundance of medicines being created that are changing standards of care, the health of all humans should be improving."
What caught your interest about RSV's Access to Medicines Internship program?
"Drug manufacturers play a crucial part in leveling off health inequities, and experiencing the presence of health inequity in my rotations and immersion experiences in my PharmD program showed me that there is still lots of good to be done. This is why my passion to help people and increase equitable healthcare to all people was a large factor in my desire to contribute to Roivant Social Ventures' mission to advance global health equity."
What were your biggest takeaways from your corporate strategy internship with Elutia this summer?
"I wanted to do an industry internship this summer to gain experience beyond my hospital and retail pharmacy rotations. It has been great getting to work so closely with Elutia's CEO Randy Mills and his leadership team. I have gained exposure to how business minded decisions are made and got the chance to see how Randy and his team have built the company together. They have worked hard to create a culture where every team member is really aligned on their goal of helping patients."
What were your favorite takeaways from the "Making Medicines" class you took prior to your internship?
"I loved that we got exposure to many different viewpoints from experts all over the pharmaceutical industry. In class we got to hear about real problems that each guest lecturer actually faced in their work and they shared insight into how they decided to approach issues that can arise."
Access to Medicines Internship/Fellowship Program
This May, Roivant Sciences and Roivant Social Ventures partnered to host our Access to Medicines Internship and Fellowship Program, providing real-world drug development experience to qualified PharmD students. The intentions of this program are to expand access to medicines to underserved populations, and to further UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy's goal of providing future industry leaders with pharmaceutical experience during their PharmD tenure.
During the Spring 2024 semester all interns completed RSV's "Making Medicines" course at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, the top ranked School of Pharmacy in the United States. This innovative course was designed to introduce PharmD students to the new drug approval process and key issues in drug discovery, pre-clinical testing, clinical trials, FDA approval, and global access to medicines. The course is taught by Lindsay Androski, RSV Founder & CEO, and Scott Singleton, Associate Professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.