Astraea Medical Consulting Ltd was established in April 2020 by Dr Sue Lacey, PhD to provide in-depth strategic and operational scientific and medical affairs consultancy services across all stages of the product life-cycle to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical education agency and other healthcare providers.
Sue is a highly knowledgable, commercially astute senior Medical Affairs leader with 20+ years pharmaceutical industry experience at country, regional and global levels. She has a passion for addressing unmet medical needs through the development and clinical practice realization of innovative medicines.
Her 10 years of Medical Affairs experience at Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals established an appreciation of the FMCG approach to drug development and product launches, in particular how the deep understanding of patient and clinician insights can enhance strategies to optimize patient outcomes.
More recently, Sue had the opportunity to lead the Novartis Global Medical Affairs team for one of the first rare disease gene therapy product launches outside the US. The experience of navigating this unique, first in therapy area product through regulatory and reimbursement approvals and the opportunity to work with medical experts to translate and replicate results in clinical trials into clinical practice provided her with unique appreciation into this exponentially growing area of medicine.
The desire to be able to apply her Medical Affairs experiences and insights to a broader range of therapy areas in partnership with different stakeholders was the motivation behind the move to work independently and establish Astraea Medical Consulting.
As for the origin of the company name…
The most impactful moment of Sue’s career was when she met one of the very first patients to receive gene therapy in a clinical study for their inherited retina disease. He recalled, with a huge smile, how when he flew home after his treatment he looked out of the plane window and realised for the first time ever, he was able to see the stars.
In Greek mythology, Astraea means ‘starry night’ or ‘star maiden’. Representing precision and justice, according to myth the goddess Astraea will return from the heavens bringing an end to human suffering. These aspirational characteristics, coupled with Sue’s experience working with gene therapy to allow patients destined for blindness the chance to ‘see the stars’, led to the name ‘Astraea Medical Consulting‘.
