Stephen Godwin

Strategic Advisor, BSc PhD

Stephen is a trained neuropharmacologist and after quitting the academic world, joined Merck, first as a market researcher, and then as a product manager. Before he left, he was handling three Merck brands, all of which were market leaders.

Stephen joined Eli Lilly as International Product Manager to oversee imminent UK, EU & ME launches of Prozac, one of the most successful international drug launches in history.

Switching to the agency side, Stephen then spent four years in ‘big consultancy’ before joining Taylor Nelson Healthcare as a board director. He remained there for ten years as it grew from c.£20m to £150m in sales, joining Synovate in 2003. This was then sold to Ipsos in 2012, by which time Stephen had built a small, specialist sub-unit which focused exclusively on opinion leader (KOL) research. This profitable business was then taken to The Planning Shop and, over the following nine years, Stephen recruited and interviewed in depth c.2,000 top-ranking academic physicians across many therapy areas (especially various cancer types) and typically about long-term market trends.