Ruth March

Biography

Ruth March, PhD, is Vice-President of AstraZeneca’s Personalised Healthcare and Biomarkers function, including over 100 diagnostic and biomarker experts in the UK, US and Sweden. A member of the senior team leading AstraZeneca’s Innovative Medicines & Early Development, Ruth is accountable for delivering companion diagnostics and validated biomarkers to AstraZeneca drug projects, targeting medicines across all therapy areas to those most likely to benefit. Over the past 10 years, Ruth has led AstraZeneca’s capability in personalised healthcare to develop as an industry leader, ensuring 80% of drug projects are following personalised healthcare approaches, and steering $90m investment in diagnostic partnerships. Her leadership of regulatory approval for companion diagnostic tests enabled delivery of AstraZeneca's important medicines to lung cancer and ovarian cancer patients. Ruth has pioneered the first FDA-approved lab-based companion diagnostic, the first drug label based on circulating tumour DNA, the first diagnostic partnership for next generation sequencing, and personalised healthcare across therapy areas. A genomics specialist with over 50 publications, Ruth drew on her academic research to lead the first genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) analysis of a safety biomarker to be submitted to the FDA.

Research Interest

Personalised Healthcare and Biomarkers