Research Associate

We are seeking an experienced qualitative social science researcher with a strong publications track record to work on a project looking at new ways of developing medicines for rare diseases.
The rapid growth of new very expensive “orphan” drugs for the treatment of rare diseases is being driven by novel business models in the biopharmaceutical industry, poses a series of major challenges for patient access to healthcare, and has become the subject of a high-profile controversy and policy debate over how they should be regulated. This project is part of a major Wellcome Trust funded award “Orphan drugs: high prices, access to medicines and the transformation of biopharmaceutical innovation”.
The main award is divided into three distinct workstreams and this post will help deliver part of Workstream 3: Patient groups and new models of drug innovation, which aims to explore the emergence of new forms of patient engagement in drug development and review initiatives to support patient-led drug repurposing. This will involve describing the crisis in drug discovery and development, analysing the growing involvement of patient organisations in different forms of orphan drug innovation through a series of qualitative case studies in the UK and USA, and charting a range of national and international initiatives.
You will assist the PI (Professor Paul Martin) complete a key element of Workstream 3 on alternative and patient led innovation models based on drug repurposing, which involves low cost routes to develop new uses for generic medicines. These initiatives are part of a broader international trend towards alternative drug development outside the traditional innovation process dominated by large pharmaceutical companies. Such bottom-up initiatives can be thought of as forms of social pharmaceutical innovation (SPINs). The research will collate examples of patient-led and non-profit initiatives for drug development in general and drug repurposing in particular.
You will contribute to a number of writing projects by completing a series of case studies based on data already completed and conducting qualitative interviews (where needed), including: 1) A “White Paper” on SPINs that will be launched at an international symposium in Amsterdam in July 2024. The postholder will also contribute to the organisation of this event; 2) A paper on the policy issues raised by drug repurposing; 3) A paper on the use of whole genome sequencing for risk prediction; and 4) a paper on the development of data assets in the NHS.
You will have a PhD or equivalent research experience in a relevant academic field (e.g. STS, medical sociology, innovation studies) and a developing research profile and research experience. You will have expertise in qualitative social science research methods and strong research writing skills with a proven track record of producing high quality journal articles.