Roderick Mackenzie0:07
Hi, I'm Rod McKenzie. I'm the former Chief Development Officer of Pfizer and immediate past chair of the Transcelerate board, and I'm very proud to be part of Transcelerate at such an exciting time for this organization and for our industry at large.
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. As a result, we were able to deliver breakthrough vaccines and medicines with unprecedented speed and quality, and 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.
That experience has reinforced my strongly held belief that the folks who created Transcelerate 10 years ago were true visionaries, well ahead of their time. Put it another way: 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 need like COVID-19.
For the past 10 years, Transcelerate has worked to improve R&D by partnering with stakeholders across the ecosystem to transform the important insights, experiences, and perspectives of its members into sustainable industry change. Those who have benefited include patients, healthcare practitioners, global health authorities, clinical investigators, academic research institutions, clinical research organizations, and many others.
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. Out of sheer necessity, 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.
I'm very proud of the way we came together during the pandemic, and 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 share learnings and address 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. So 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.
