Presented by AAPS’ Women in Pharmaceutical Science Community
Featuring Annette Bak Ph.D, M.B.A., Head of Advanced Drug Delivery, Pharmaceutical Sciences, R&D AstraZeneca
Annette Bak, Ph.D., leads Advanced Drug Delivery at AstraZeneca and serves on the Pharmaceutical Sciences leadership team. Since joining AstraZeneca in 2016, Bak has been instrumental in delivering new modality formulations for clinical studies, notably VEGF mRNA for cardiac regeneration, building intracellular drug delivery capabilities, and sponsoring initiatives on augmenting drug discovery with artificial intelligence.
Working across Sweden, U.K., and the U.S., Bak previously worked for Amgen and Merck with responsibility for small molecule and peptide formulations, building outsourcing partnerships in China, licensing and partner- ship evaluations, and contributing to getting small molecule therapies to the market.
Bak has published more than 40 articles, received 35 invited presentations, and serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. She holds several patents for pharmaceutical technologies enabling drug delivery of small molecules and biologics.
As the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientist’s (AAPS) presdent-elect, she is responsible for leading the 2021-2026 AAPS Strategic Plan. Bak is the co-founder for the Women in Pharmaceutical Sciences community at AAPS, the 2020 co-recipient the AAPS the Alice E. Till Advancement of Women in Pharmaceutical Sciences Recognition and is internationally known as an advocate for career development for women.
What was the biggest challenge that you faced in your career? How did you overcome that?
Alignment of values, skills, and abilities with work culture is very important. I have worked in cultures that align well and less well with me as a person. The former feels like a perfectly fitting shoe versus the latter. When I run into bumps in the road, I have learned to elevate myself over the problem at hand and take them as opportunities to grow. It sounds easier than it is, but the hardest times in my career have shaped the leader and person I am today. The key to being able to handle such growth opportunities is a great network and good mentors.
Do you have experience receiving mentoring? If you do, what is the best advice that you have received from a mentor?
In my view, the finest role of a mentor is to compassionately point out blind spots. I was really ambitious early in my career and very focused on getting promoted. While it’s very hard to pick the best piece of advice I have received from a mentor, by a small margin I think it was, “stop being so focused on getting promoted, and then one will land before you know it.”
I am still very ambitious but learned from this and other experiences to not be so fixated on the mechanics of moving up. Rather, to focus on being authentic, my contributions, what I love doing, and helping others around me. When I reached that state, my career naturally started to progress.
When you look back at your career, would you have done anything differently?
I wished I would have attained self-insight and leadership sooner, focused my career sooner, been more deliberate in following my passion, and went in the direction inherent in my natural skills. Early in my career, I was unfocused. For example, I selected my first course of study as veterinary medicine just because I felt common notions would dictate medicine to be on the top of the hierarchy of educations, only to find out that it was not the right fit for me. Then I pursued what I had always loved: physical chemistry. This led into pharmaceutical sciences and drug delivery which is where I found my purpose.
More examples like this include pursuing project management as I liked my future boss (I am not very organized) or focusing on managing up rather than “out and across,” thinking it would benefit my career. Good mentors allowed me to focus myself and my career on the things that were aligned to my values and really important, which greatly accelerated my growth and impact.
Can you share two tips for early career professionals on how to develop their career successfully?
TIP 1: Find at least one mentor. This is not so much to grow scientifically, but to help you transition from studying and the educational system. No matter if you select industry, academia, or government employment after finishing school or a postdoc, it will require an adjustment. A mentor can guide you early on to make the best career choices
TIP 2: Build your network. Graduate school or a postdoc correctly teaches and focuses on individual scientific pursuit. In today’s environment, a job in any pharmaceutical setting will warrant significant collaboration and other outward facing activities. When building a network remember to make it a two-way street—be there for your network, and they will be there for you.
What message would you like to give the women in pharmsci field? What do you feel is the best way women can help each other in this field?
Recent years have seen tremendous progress in considering the diversity of the workforce. Creating awareness on unconscious bias and full inclusiveness of a diverse workforce is a work in progress. In my experience, the best way to keep the momentum is to engage with the debate as knowledge furthers change. I think the progress in diversity was accomplished by key leaders—women and men— standing up and talking about the issue. We need to do the same for unconscious bias and inclusion. Therefore, it is important that we all continue the conversation.