Ryan Hicks

Coupled with AstraZeneca’s ambitions in the cell therapy space, my role is to lead the Bioscience Cell Therapy section within BioPharmaceuticals R&D. In this role, I am responsible for the discovery and development of cell therapy based projects focusing on cardiovascular, renal, metabolic, respiratory and immunological diseases.

A major part of my role is to collaborate closely with internal and external experts in the cell therapy field and related disciplines. Within AstraZeneca, this goes across all BioPharmaceuticals R&D disease areas, as well as Oncology R&D, to leverage the existing and emerging platforms in stem cell technologies, new modalities, universal cell lines and CRISPR-mediated genome editing. Externally, I work with existing collaborators as well as establish new partnerships, to develop technologies and cellular therapeutic projects that will discover novel treatments for serious diseases and advance these towards patients.

I joined AstraZeneca in the UK in 2001 and have been based in Sweden since 2010.  Throughout this time I have led a variety of cell and molecular focused groups across several global functions and therapy areas. Prior to joining the Cell Therapy Department, I held the role of Associate Director for the Stem and Primary Cell group, focusing on the generation of primary and stem cell models for target identification, validation and cell therapy applications across our therapeutic areas. This included the co-leadership of cell therapy projects in the preclinical stage as well as driving cell therapy capability initiatives.

I obtained my PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Leeds, UK, in 2001 and have published more than 25 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.