David Roblin, MD
David is a physician whose career has moved from bedside to bench whilst some of his ideas and research moved in the opposite direction! He practiced medicine in London teaching hospitals before joining Pfizer and then Bayer where he developed medicines including ciprofloxacin, moxifloxacin, mariviroc and sildenafil. He delivered R&D strategies that have had wide influence in translational medicine and precompetitive science. His involvement in the latter included being a co-founder of the Innovative Medicines Initiative; a €2B public private partnership in precompetitive science with EU. He subsequently worked in biotech where the companies he supports raised over £100M and all of which also delivered positive clinical trials.
At the Francis Crick Institute David managed the merger of the legacy institutes; he has coordinated the activities of the new institute over four sites; he led the creation of the institute’s corporate functions; and delivered the new laboratory on budget. His industrial experience informed his formulation of the Crick’s distinctive translation strategy, which has already seen the Crick win significant grants and generated two spinout companies.
David was born and educated in Wales and studied biochemistry (1st Class) at UCL and Medicine (Honors) at St George’s. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Honorary Professor of Medicine at Swansea University, and is an Honorary Professor of Translational Medicine at St George’s Hospital Medical School in London.