Executive Vice President & Chief Commercial Officer, Transocean
Search every verified Roderick Mackenzie interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a September 2022 video marking TransCelerate's 10-year anniversary, Rod MacKenzie, then former Chief Development Officer of Pfizer and immediate past chair of the TransCelerate board, stated that the COVID-19 pandemic "forced us to think differently and challenge every one of our convictions about drug discovery and development." He attributed the resulting "breakthrough vaccines and medicines with unprecedented speed and quality" to "remarkable cross-sector collaboration." MacKenzie said that if TransCelerate had not existed prior to 2020, a similar organization would have had to be created from scratch to address the public health need. MacKenzie described TransCelerate as having worked over the past decade to improve R&D by partnering with stakeholders to turn member insights into "sustainable industry change." He said that as Chief Development Officer he had a "front row seat" for Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine and oral antiviral development, which he described as setting "a new standard for the future of drug development." MacKenzie stated that the industry "cannot go back to the way things were before" and emphasized the importance of building on pandemic-era learnings to make trials "more equitable" and to accelerate delivery of medicines. He called TransCelerate "a key resource" for sharing learnings and addressing challenges such as access and diversity in trials.
“The desperate urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to think differently and challenge every one of our convictions about drug discovery and development, and as a result we were able to deliver breakthrough vaccines and medicines with unprecedented speed and quality.”
“Much of that was possible because of the remarkable cross-sector collaboration that we witnessed when the chips were really down and society needed it the most.”
“If TransCelerate hadn't existed prior to 2020, we would have had to create a similar organization from scratch because without its established collaborative model and the ways it has already improved R&D over the last decade, we simply would not have been able to swiftly address such a dramatic and urgent public health...”
“For the past 10 years, TransCelerate has worked to improve R&D by partnering with stakeholders across the ecosystem to transform the important insights and experiences and perspectives of its members into sustainable industry change.”
“As Chief Development Officer, I had a front row seat for our lightspeed COVID-19 vaccine and oral antiviral development that have set a new standard for the future of drug development.”
“Many new practices and opportunities emerged during this time to make R&D nimbler, more transparent, and more accessible, and it's clear that we as an industry cannot go back to the way things were before.”
“It's vitally important that we build on what we learned in that work to make trials more equitable and to accelerate where we can so that we can deliver medicines and vaccines to patients even faster in the future.”
“TransCelerate is a key resource in helping industry colleagues to share learnings and to address the broader healthcare challenges such as access and diversity in trials and the transparency we bring to the work, to name just two.”
“TransCelerate does it by bringing people together with a common purpose who form partnerships with others across the ecosystem providing sustainable value to all stakeholders.”
“I send my heartfelt congratulations to TransCelerate on its 10th anniversary and for all that this organization has achieved in its first 10 years, and I look forward with excitement and anticipation to all that's to come in the next ten.”
Sign in to search the full transcript archive, filter by topic, and access every quote from Roderick Mackenzie.
The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →