Duration: 1:01:55 | 26 September 2016
Sir Simon Campbell
On Tuesday 27 September 2016 SCI’s Public Evening Lecture entered the world of drug discovery, going behind the scenes with one the UK’s leading synthetic organic chemists. The lecture was delivered by Sir Simon Campbell, former Senior Vice President for Worldwide Discovery and Medicinals at Pfizer. The presentation gave his personal perspective on the science, art and discovery of Viagra™ and Norvasc™, both of which he played a key role in the research teams that developed these drugs so widely used today.
About the Speaker
Sir Simon Campbell is a synthetic organic chemist who received his PhD from the University of Birmingham in 1965 followed by postdoctoral appointments in Chile and Stanford. From 1969 to 1972, he was Visiting Professor at the Universidade do Sao Paulo in Brazil, and then returned to the UK to join Pfizer Central Research in Sandwich. Sir Simon retired from Pfizer in 1998 as Senior Vice President for Worldwide Discovery and Medicinals R&D Europe. He has co-authored over 120 publications and patents, and was a key member of the research teams that discovered Cardura™, Norvasc™, and Viagra™.
Dr Campbell’s scientific contributions have been recognised by the RSC Award for Medicinal Chemistry (1989), the Herschberg Award from the American Chemical Society (1997), the Industrial Research Institute (US) Achievement Award (1997), the CIA Individual Achievement Award (2006), Galen Medal (2007) and the Sir James Black Award for Drug Discovery (2012). He was elected FRS (1999), FMedSci (2002) and was appointed CBE in 2006 for ‘Services to Science’ followed by a knighthood in 2015 for ‘Services to Chemistry’. Sir Simon was named at number 31 in the Times Eureka list of 100 top UK scientists for 2010, and was included as a business scientist in the Science Council list of the UK’s 100 leading practising scientists in 2014.
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