Tom Macfarlane joins Life Sciences arm of management consultancy Chaucer

Chaucer Consulting has welcomed a new Associate Partner to its London Life Sciences practice, in the shape of industry veteran Tom Macfarlane. Arriving from Accenture, Macfarlane is tasked with wedding new technologies and methodologies in the R&D department of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, a long-term Chaucer client.

As the National Health Service continues to seek out savings opportunities while the government remains reluctant to up spending on the institution, and as health insurance and pharmaceutical costs threaten to spike in the near future, consulting firms are in demand in both the private and public sector to help the health industry negotiate the issues of the day.

London-headquartered consultancy Chaucer celebrated its 30th anniversary in business last year, having spent three decades helping some of the world’s largest organisations with transformation programmes. Throughout that history, Chaucer has worked to support the life sciences sector in particular, as the continuously changing industry has called for external expertise in helping understand the challenges that new technologies and demographic shifts throw up. As a result, Chaucer employs experienced consultants working from hubs in Europe and the US who work side-by-side with our clients to deliver results-driven programs across the drug continuum and corporate functions.

As the firm looks to bolster its UK wing of its Life Sciences offering, the consultancy has announced the appointment of Tom Macfarlane to it’s the practice. Coming from a combined neuroscience, drug development and information technology background, Macfarlane has spent some 15 years working at the forefront of both clinical and digital innovation, having worked with the pharmaceutical industry, national medicines regulators and Big Tech firms in that time.

Following a lengthy career in the industry of Life Sciences itself, during which Macfarlane worked for the BG Group, Ceremedx and Ipsen, before transitioning into consulting work in 2012, with Parexel. After two years as a Senior Consultant with the firm, Macfarlane joined Accenture, spending four years with the consulting giant’s European and US Life Sciences wing, latterly as a Director. He is currently a Peer Reviewer for J. Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science, and a National Information Board Member for the UK Department of Health, both positions which he will hold onto alongside his latest engagement.

In his new role as an Associate Partner at Chaucer, Macfarlane will assume programme-wide responsibility for bringing together new technologies and thinking within the R&D segment of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

Commenting via LinkedIn, Michael Whitworth, Head of Life Sciences at Chaucer Consulting, said of the client in question, “Chaucer’s trusted relationship with this ground-breaking client has allowed them to act at the intersection between internal and external innovation, enabling a culture in which the best ideas – including advances in natural language processing, robotic process automation and machine learning – tested, implemented and allowed to flourish.”