Marianne Ashford's Biography

Marianne Ashford, Principal Scientist, AstraZeneca

Upon completion of her PhD into Oral Drug Delivery Systems to the Colon, in the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science, the University of Manchester, UK, Marianne joined ICI Pharmaceuticals in Cheshire (later to become Zeneca and then AstraZeneca). Marianne worked in a Pharmaceutical Research group initially looking at formulation approaches for poorly soluble compounds and building up the biopharmaceutics capability. She became Team Leader and then Associate Director of a Preformulation and Biopharmaceutics group evaluating the product design characteristics of candidate drugs in the Oncology, Inflammation and Cardiovascular therapy areas, supplying pre-clinical formulations as well as providing solid state science and biopharmaceutics support across the Discovery and Development portfolio. In 2005, Marianne moved to a project management role leading the pharmaceutical development of a number of AstraZeneca’s Oncology development drugs at all stages of clinical development. In 2011, Marianne returned to a scientific role focused on exploiting drug delivery approaches to improve the therapeutic index of medicines and in particular, has worked closely with the Oncology teams to initiate a number of joint projects and collaborations in the Nanomedicine area. Marianne has authored a number of book chapters, research papers and patents in the pharmaceutical science arena and is keen to use her scientific knowledge and experience to improve therapies for patients.