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Frsc Sarah Skerratt
Head of Chemistry (MSD, London), Executive Director
Professional Background
Sarah Skerratt, FRSC, is an esteemed medicinal chemist and drug discovery leader, renowned for her extensive expertise and a remarkable portfolio of achievements in the field of drug development. With a career spanning multiple prestigious organizations, Sarah has made significant contributions to the pharmaceutical industry, guiding projects from the exploratory phase through to the clinical stage. Her scientific acumen is underpinned by her thorough understanding of various target classes, including kinases, GPCRs (G Protein-Coupled Receptors), ion channels, solute carriers, and nuclear hormone receptors. Her innovative approach to data-driven and structure-based medicinal chemistry has positioned her as a leading figure in the industry, helping to transform the drug discovery process.
In her capacity as Head of Chemistry at MSD in London and Executive Director, Sarah has demonstrated exceptional leadership qualities, fostering a culture of collaboration and integrity among her teams. She is well-respected for her strategic vision, operational expertise, and ability to communicate complex scientific concepts effectively. Sarah's history of leadership encompasses direct and matrix management roles, where she has successfully influenced organizational outcomes and nurtured talent within her teams.
Education and Achievements
A strong foundation in synthetic chemistry has been pivotal in Sarah’s career. She pursued her postgraduate studies in Synthetic Chemistry at the University of Nottingham, followed by postdoctoral work at the illustrious Stanford University. Sarah earned her undergraduate degree in Chemistry, securing a Master’s degree from The University of Sheffield. This robust educational background has equipped her with the skills necessary to excel in various domains of drug discovery, including pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, toxicology, and pharmaceutical sciences.
Sarah has authored more than 40 patents and has contributed numerous peer-reviewed publications to the scientific community. Moreover, she frequently engages in external presentations, sharing her insights and knowledge with her peers, further establishing her reputation as a thought leader in medicinal chemistry.
Skills and Expertise
Sarah's comprehensive skills list highlights her proficiency across various key areas in drug discovery:
- External Collaboration: Sarah has successfully managed strategic alliances and partnerships between industry and academia, fostering innovation and collaboration.
- Research Strategy and Management: With a keen focus on research direction, she has effectively managed research teams and projects to align with leading-edge scientific initiatives.
- Portfolio Review and Management: Her analytical skills extend to managing and reviewing research portfolios, ensuring that resources are allocated efficiently to prioritize high-impact projects.
- New Target Identification and Validation: Sarah excels in identifying new therapeutic targets and validating their potential, significantly influencing the direction of drug development.
- Data-driven and Structure-based Medicinal Chemistry Design: She employs innovative design strategies to enhance the drug discovery process, leading to the development of efficacious pharmaceutical candidates.
- Hit Identification to Lead Optimization: Her expertise spans the continuum from initial hit identification through to lead optimization, ensuring that promising candidates progress smoothly toward clinical trials.
- Development Candidate Identification: Through her extensive experience across multiple therapeutic areas, Sarah has successfully identified development candidates that have advanced to preclinical development stages.
- Preclinical Development Project Leadership: Sarah has a proven track record of project leadership within preclinical development, skillfully steering projects toward successful outcomes.
- External Advisory Board Membership: Her insights and experience are sought after in advisory capacities, where she advises on strategic directions in drug discovery.
Notable Achievements
Throughout her distinguished career, Sarah has held key leadership positions within globally recognized companies. At Vertex Pharmaceuticals, she served as the Head of Medicinal Chemistry in the UK and held the Senior Director title, where her leadership advanced the company’s objectives in medicine development. Prior to this role, Sarah served at Convergence (a Biogen company) as the Director of Chemistry, where her contributions were instrumental in driving their drug discovery efforts.
Her tenure at Pfizer is marked by a succession of impactful roles, including Research Fellow and Senior Principal Scientist within the Worldwide Medicinal Chemistry department. Over the years, Sarah continued to rise through the ranks at Pfizer, beginning as a Senior Scientist and progressing to Principal Scientist, ultimately transforming the scope of their medicinal chemistry team.
Sarah Skerratt's extensive experience, innovative approach to medicinal chemistry, and her commitment to advancing drug discovery exemplify her as a leader within the pharmaceutical industry. Her strategic mindset and dedication to fostering collaborative relationships continue to position her as a pivotal player in the future of medical advancements.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
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Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
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