Fierce Biotech Feature: “From whiteboard to white coat: Roivant Social Ventures teams up with San Diego drug discovery center to bolster diversity in biopharma” by Max Bayer
Click here to read the full, original article in Fierce Biotech.
Last summer, Lindsay Androski, founder of Roivant Social Ventures, was mulling an initiative that could intertwine Roivant Sciences’ thrust for shelved drugs while improving clinical trial diversity. But Roivant was too small, and so she needed a home. It just so happened that Randy Mills, Ph.D., CEO of Sanford Burnham Prebys, was looking to grow the center’s biomedical sciences school.
The two met one day in August 2021 at a conference room in Washington, D.C., and immediately began “whiteboarding” their plans. Seven months later, those plans have crystallized, with the two organizations announcing a new training program Thursday that aims to both improve diversity in biopharma while providing students with more well-rounded drug development training.
“If we can take really talented, diverse students, provide them with unparalleled training and experience, we can really help shift the paradigm and more quickly implement improvements in diversity at the senior-most levels of the industry,”
said Androski in an interview with Fierce Biotech.
Fueling Androski's vision for the initiative were Roivant's plans to move away from building its suite of companies around shelved drugs. But she felt there were still ample opportunities to put those potential therapies to use and needed a vehicle to develop them…