Marianne Ashford, PhD, is a Senior Principal Scientist in a global role in Advanced Drug Delivery Department within Pharmaceutical Sciences at AstraZeneca. Marianne is responsible for applying drug delivery approaches which enable the progression of innovative medicines and is working to enable novel targets through intracellular delivery of new modalities such as nucleic acid based drugs.
Marianne has been instrumental in introducing nanomedicines to improve therapeutic index into the AstraZeneca Oncology clinical portfolio. She has initiated several collaborations and the building of the internal capability in nanomedicines, drug targeting and intracellular delivery receiving several internal awards for this work.
Previously Marianne led a Preformulation and Biopharmaceutics Group which was responsible for influencing candidate drug design from a product perspective and providing support across the portfolio in solid state science and biopharmaceutics.
Marianne has also held project management roles leading pharmaceutical teams and influencing the global product strategy of various AstraZeneca oncology compounds.
Marianne has published over 60 peer reviewed papers and reviews, six book chapters and holds several patents. She has delivered invited talks, keynotes and plenaries in nanomedicine and advanced drug delivery worldwide. Marianne holds Honorary Professor roles at the Universities of Nottingham and Manchester in the UK and is a Fellow of the Controlled Release Society. Marianne has served on numerous academic and industrial scientific committees and advisory boards in the field of drug delivery. She has been a long-time supporter of the CRS taking leadership roles in the UK&I Local Chapter, being member of the Industry Foresight Council, and leading and organizing sessions at several CRS meetings. Most recently Marianne was on the Annual Programme Committee for the 2022 Annual Meeting in Montreal.
Marianne is passionate about using her scientific knowledge and experience to improve therapies for patients and applying drug delivery science to enable medicines of the future.
