A Life in Medical Innovation and Philanthropy | Sue Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH

May 28, 2024

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with an endowment of over $50 billion, is one of the largest and most influential philanthropic organizations in the world. With a focus on addressing global health, poverty, and education, its initiatives have led to the reduction of malaria mortality by 60% over the past two decades, the near eradication of polio, increased educational opportunities of millions of students, and improved sanitation conditions for millions of people in developing countries.

For six years, oncologist Sue Desmond-Hellmann, MD, MPH was the CEO of this organization. Prior to that, she served as Chancellor of the University of California at San Francisco, as well as President of Product Development at Genentech, where she oversaw the development of Herceptin, Avastin, Rituxan, and other blockbuster cancer drugs that are now staples in the arsenal of many medical oncologists.

The topics of our discussion in this episode are as varied as Dr. Desmond-Hellman's career. We discuss, among other things, how seeing the work of her pharmacist father encouraged her to pursue a career in medicine, how her early experiences treating HIV patients in Uganda spurred her to tackle global health challenges, how she discovered a passion for product development in the pharmaceutical industry, how she reconciles the ethical quandaries of developing medications that can cause serious adverse effects and that can sometimes cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per dose, what her mission while at the Gates Foundation was, and her perspectives on the role of artificial intelligence and human health and well-being, now that she has joined the board of directors of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.

In this episode, you will hear about:

2:50 - How working in her father’s pharmacy led Dr. Desmond-Hellmann to a career in medicine

4:56 - A brief summary of Dr. Desmond-Hellmann’s multifaceted career trajectory

15:36 - What the day to day work of pharmaceutical drug development looks like

18:30 - The challenging ethical concerns that surround drug approvals especially as it pertains to safety concerns

23:44 - Dr. Desmond-Hellmann’s experiences in Uganda that forever transformed her views on poverty

27:55 - The aims of the Gates Foundation

30:47 - How Dr. Desmond-Hellmann views her work both in the non-profit and the for-profit sectors

37:15 - Dr. Desmond-Hellmann’s mission when she took on a leading role at The Gates Foundation

38:38 - How Dr. Desmond-Hellmann thinks about shaping the future of AI as she takes a seat on the board of OpenAI

45:14 - Dr. Desmond-Hellmann’s advice for medical trainees and clinicians on how to navigate the many opportunities available to them along their career path

Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann can be found on Twitter/X @suedhellmann.

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