One Nucleus adds power and influence as senior AstraZeneca executive, Penny James joins the region’s life science membership organisation’s Board

Cambridge, UK: 28 April 2020: One Nucleus, the Cambridge based not-for-profit membership organisation for the East of England-London life sciences cluster, is delighted to announce the appointment of Penny James as a Non-Executive Director. Penny is Chief Operating Officer, Biopharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca, a role she took up in February 2019.

Penny has 25 years’ experience working in pharmaceutical and chemical industries, having worked closely with both manufacturing and R&D teams at all organisation levels during her career, to drive process efficiency and effectiveness and enable them to achieve their goals. In her current role, Penny is responsible for the operation of the BioPharmaceuticals R&D organisation and AstraZeneca’s European R&D sites.

Penny will be an excellent addition to the One Nucleus Board. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the strategic management of business transformation, external resourcing and organisational efficiency, all of which play a critical role within One Nucleus member companies. Penny’s addition to the Board will further enable One Nucleus to develop initiatives that inform and support our growing member companies.

Commenting on her appointment Penny said: “AstraZeneca have been closely involved with One Nucleus since its creation and I very much look forward to working with the team to support their future objectives. These are challenging times for the sector and One Nucleus, with the support of the region’s businesses, is extremely well placed to connect and champion the cluster to entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers in order to catalyse business creation and growth. I am delighted to have been asked to become a Non-Executive Director and look forward to bringing my experience to the Board, to support the team and assist One Nucleus members.”

Tony Jones, CEO of One Nucleus commented: “Penny is a fabulous addition to the team. She has a deep understanding of the needs of the One Nucleus members, the cluster and the industry as a whole. This deep knowledge during an uncertain period where resilience and strategy will be key to continuing the growth success of the cluster as our members pioneer the invention and translation of new medicines and technologies that will deliver better patient outcomes. I look forward to working with Penny who is an ideal addition to the One Nucleus Board.”

About Penny

Penny has worked for AstraZeneca in the UK for 12 years and was appointed as Chief Operating Officer, BioPharmaceuticals R&D in February 2019. Penny James was previously Vice President Operations for the IMED Biotech Unit and responsible for Project and Portfolio management for the IMED drug project pipeline, Facility management of four global R&D locations and strategic IMED cross functional planning including; Scorecard and Leadership Team Management, the IMED Graduate programme, Brexit planning and Risk Management. In her current role, Penny is be responsible for Facility management of our European sites and operation of the R&D BioPharmaceuticals Unit.

Penny has 25 years’ experience working in pharmaceutical and chemical industries, having worked closely with both manufacturing and R&D teams at all organisation levels during her career, to drive process efficiency and effectiveness and enable them to achieve their goals. She has led Lean Sigma programmes at Eastman Chemical company, working at sites and with management teams all over Europe and the US. Penny has delivered significant cost savings over her career through a variety of change projects, including organisational transformation from internal to global external CRO resourcing models. Penny also spent 10 years working as an industrial statistician, consulting in manufacturing and product development, and is a Chartered Statistician, Lean Sigma Master Black Belt and holds an MSc in Medical Statistics.