Meet the nextGEN
Janette Thomas - 5AlarmBio
What is your personal story of how you ended up in the life sciences?
Although I always enjoyed science class, my school wasn't at all academic and only taught me biology. I never expected to study, so I left school before my A-levels and did various other things, including jobs as a dancer and retail management. But I always wanted to learn more about science and eventually went back to do my A-levels. I funded myself and surprised myself by passing them.
After that, I did a degree at a polytechnic, which was fantastic. This spurred me on to do a PhD at the University of Leicester that focused on protein structure and function. No two days were the same. It was a very exciting time.
I believe my PhD experience is a key part of my whole career and everything I've ever done. It's where I started talking to people, finding out what they were doing, making connections, and learning new and different things. I'm definitely a ‘breadth person’ not a ‘depth person’, and I enjoyed going into different departments, learning about all the different techniques, pulling it all together, and taking it back to support my research.
After finishing my postdoc at Cambridge University, I decided to stay in science and became a researcher at Glaxo. To me, the most wonderful thing about working at Glaxo was connecting with all the wonderful people in different departments.
I would go around talking to people and make introductions for people across different departments. I got involved in a lot of teams and would rush from department to department, doing cell biology in one department and kinetics in another.
Although I enjoyed research, all this footing around meant I was never a scientist focused on one area. I knew a lot but had no in-depth expertise. So I thought that my skills might be more useful in project management. Being in a big company like Glaxo meant I could change careers, so I applied for a job in project management and got it.
It was brilliant. Again, I flitted around from department to department, learning all about medical chemistry, pharmacy, safety and toxicity, and everything to do with manufacturing. I loved putting together all the plans for drug development, working with the marketing team, and working towards the strategic goals of the company.
I had come across a lot of entrepreneurialism when I was young. Although we were a working-class family, my parents weren’t bound by their work. They were happy to change jobs if they were unhappy at work. For example, my dad started up a little market garden when he didn't want to work as a tool maker anymore. Eventually, my parents left work altogether and went to live in Greece on a small yacht. It taught me that there are many opportunities in the world and you don't need to be bound by your workplace and stay where you are.
When the GSK merger happened in 2000, everything took a long time. We couldn't work on our projects at the same pace as we used to and we got tied up in knots about whether we were allowed to move forward with our projects. It was frustrating. That’s when I decided to use my earlier life experiences and what I’d learned from my parents: I got a job in a small life science company and never looked back.
Since then, I’ve worked in several companies, including Horizon Discovery, which was particularly successful. I’ve also worked closely with Toby Wilson Waterworth, the founder of Atlantic Healthcare, and learned all about going through Phase III and getting to market.
Toby then introduced me to Brian Bennett, who had developed a topical cream, which had already healed chronic wounds in diabetic patients. So we started Pellis Care to see if we could further develop that cream to treat chronic wounds. Those were very exciting days because what we achieved scientifically was great. The way we translated the original idea to get a novel IP worked really well. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get sufficient funding to start clinical trials, which means that the company is on hold at the moment.
But that experience introduced me to Sunil Shah, who is the co-founder of 5AlarmBio alongside William Bains and Ann Baker. Sunil needed someone to help fundraise for 5AlarmBio and get a grant started. He asked me if I would join and I did.
Janette’s full profile is available for our members inside the community.