A Career Journey Led by the Heart

Dr. Diane Jorkasky Is Our First “Women in Medicine” Award Recipient from the Pharma and Biotech Worlds

Diane Jorkasky, M’77, FEL’83, describes her career as having been divided into three phases: academic medical practice, large pharma, and then biotechnology. Through it all, she says, “I’ve never regretted any of the steps in my career and, in particular, in following my heart and yen for adventure.”

After graduating from Penn, Dr. Jorkasky became the second woman chief resident in the long history of Pennsylvania Hospital. Dr. Jorkasky completed her post-doctoral fellowship in nephrology at HUP, where she joined the staff and won the Donna McCurdy Award for housestaff teaching. Dr. Jorkasky then moved on to what she characterized as a unique “chimera” position as the Renal Division Chief of the Department of Medicine at Presbyterian Medical Center as well as Vice President of Clinical Research and Clinical Pharmacology for SmithKline Beecham, where she supervised clinical drug trials in humans. She was subsequently recruited to Pfizer, and held several leadership positions there from 2000–2009. Since then Dr. Jorkasky has turned her interests to the field of biotech, currently serving as Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, and Head of Development at Complexa Therapeutics, Inc., based in Radnor, PA, developing nitrofatty acid signaling technology.

Pulse sat down with Dr. Jorkasky to discuss her decision to go into industry and her primary messages for young women in medicine.

Q: What drew you to industry?

A: Recruitment helped. SmithKline Beckman at that time, now GlaxoSmithKline, came knocking, and it was the right time for me. I was feeling restless and limited. It was the late 1980s, and I was struck by the sparse opportunities both for women and for anyone interested in clinical research. Also, I had a sense of how my career in academia would unfold; pharma seemed to offer untold opportunity and greater room for growth. I was particularly inspired by the prospect of applying basic science findings to treatments at the clinical level—I felt like I was getting into translational medicine before it got its name.

Q: What are your proudest achievements in pharma?

A: As Vice President of Development and Head of Worldwide Clinical Research Operations at Pfizer, I developed an integrated international network of four large state-of-the-art translational research facilities where virtually all of Pfizer’s new drugs were first evaluated in humans. The greatest integration of science and medicine is doing drug development, in my opinion, and I was helming novel clinical translational approaches coupled with improvements in the drug development process to rapidly identify whether a drug worked and was safe in humans. This was unique in the industry.

Q: You continued on in the industry at Endo Pharmaceuticals and Aileron Therapeutics. What prompted you to move on to biotech?

A: I felt ready for another challenge and the higher one gets in pharma, the more administrative the responsibilities. I felt like I was starting to let my extensive training and experience go to waste, and I was missing the application of science. Biotech was where some of the most fascinating work and greatest learning was taking place. It was exciting to be at the ground level again, starting a biotech venture and seeing that I still had the scientific chops to make a go of it.

Q: What advice do you offer to young women in medicine, in particular?

A: The importance of the journey, not the destination. I trusted that I would get there, wherever ”there” is, and at the same time I learned so much throughout my career.

In one’s career, and life, I encourage honesty. It always pays off in the end.

Expanding and using your network is essential throughout one’s career, and so is activating that network to advance through the ranks. Also, in terms of building one’s career, the power of influence is greater than the power of authority; you can have just as much influence without the titles. This is particularly important for women even in this day and age.

Finally, as young doctors look to start their careers, I encourage them to maintain an open mind and seek plenty of advice from people of different backgrounds. But, most of all, I urge them to follow their hearts into what gets them excited.

[Editor’s note: Please visit our Facebook gallery for photos of the 2016 Women in Medicine luncheon.]