With two decades of pharmaceutical experience both within 'big pharma' AstraZeneca plc, and within a clinical CRO in ClinOx Ltd, Dr Johnstone fully understands and appreciates the challenges that companies face in trying to manage their portfolio, or just their one drug. She has worked in the pre-clinical and clinical research functions, as well as the commercial arena before becoming a cross-functional project director.
Her experience includes the in-licensing of two small molecule agents and a portfolio of antibodies, managing the life cycle of one of AstraZeneca's best selling anti-cancer agents, Zoladex filing an MAA in the process, litigation preparation, taking four drug candidates through the hurdle of 'first time into man (FTIM) to achieve proof of mechanism with all four, and proof of principle with two. She has led teams through major portfolio hurdles in projects, based on key scientific decisions derived from state-of-the-art translational science and clinical data, and has interacted with the FDA under their "critical path" initiative.