Contact & Biographies
Graham Leask - grahamleask@btopenworld.com
Graham Leask is a member of the Economics and Strategy group at Aston University in Birmingham. Originally trained as a Zoologist, Graham studied statistics and experimental design at Imperial College, London, before joining ICI as a research scientist with specific responsibility for field trials and statistics liaison.
Graham joined the Pharmaceutical Industry in 1982 where he spent 20 years in sales and marketing during which time he was head of the Pharmaceuticals division for Roche UK and Strategic Planning Director for Astra Pharmaceuticals; in which capacity he gained practical working experience in the world's major pharmaceutical markets, including both the US and Japan. This experience led to an interest in healthcare reform, a subject on which he has published a number of articles and booklets.
Graham gained his PhD in "Competitive Strategy in Pharmaceuticals" from Cranfield University and now actively researches the measurement and implications of strategic choice on corporate valuation, competitive position and return on investment, primarily, but not exclusively, within the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industries. Research tempered by practical consulting experience gained in assisting a variety of companies to measure their promotional effects, calculate return on investment and make rational strategic choices.
Stewart Adkins - stadkins@btconnect.com
Stewart Adkins graduated in Biochemistry and Genetics from Leeds University in 1979 and spent an interesting two years at Ford's European Truck Headquarters in Product Planning. He then spent two years at Dista Products (Eli Lilly subsidiary) as a salesman in the UK. The withdrawal of Opren (benoxaprofen), an NSAID, in 1982 prompted another directional change in his career. He retrained as a financial analyst and worked at Lehman Brothers and its predecessor company from 1983.
From that time to June 2006 Stewart worked as a pharmaceutical analyst and helped build the equity research team that was number one ranked by clients in the Institutional Investor poll for the three consecutive years before he left. Stewart has spoken at many industry conferences over the years and was responsible, together with his team at Lehman Brothers, for the publication of PharmaPipelines and many other research publications known throughout the industry.
Stewart's expertise covers the gamut of competitive analysis, market assessment, forecasting and model building. Stewart set up his own consultancy, Stewart Adkins Advisors Limited, in 2006 and has been involved in many projects within the healthcare industry, including an Advance Market Commitment project, building trust with external stakeholders, a trade sale for a pharmaceutical service company and several competitive analyses. In addition he has worked as an external adviser to Oxfam on an Access to Medicines briefing paper and is part of the working group for PharmaFutures 3, a consortium of pharmaceutical industry executives and investors looking at the opportunity for new business models in the emerging markets. More details can be found on www.pharmafutures.org, www.saadvisors.net and www.oxfam.org.