Meet Madhu

Head of Charity and Patient Engagement

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My LifeArc journey

When I was growing up, I had a dream of becoming a monk. If you look at where I am today, that path might seem worlds away. And yet, I can wholeheartedly say that I not only love what I do, but my role offers a rare opportunity to “give more than I take.” For well over a decade, I’ve been fortunate to play a role at LifeArc, helping charities transform promising medical research into treatments for patients, and I’ve had an incredibly fulfilling journey.

Life before LifeArc

My academic background is in agriculture and entomology. In my early career, I worked as a research officer at the University of Adelaide, a technical consultant for a sustainable food corporation, and a senior executive for a pharmaceutical company. I then landed a role in natural products discovery for a start-up company in New Zealand and stayed there for over 8 years until I moved to England.

In my new chapter in England, I secured a role in a company specialising in intellectual property and asset management, and I had been there for over 7 years when I came across a vacancy at LifeArc (then called the Medical Research Council Technology).

The role that LifeArc was recruiting for got me excited, as I had been wanting to get closer to academia and science again, and to explore a broader range of life science discoveries and innovations within intellectual property. But taking the job involved a risk, as it was a temporary contract.

Coming aboard

As you can guess, I took a leap of faith, and it was a risk that paid off. During my first year at LifeArc, the people I worked closely with recognised my potential, and as we extended our services to other charities, I was offered a permanent position. I embraced the challenge and haven’t looked back since!

LifeArc employee, Madhu Madhusudhan, smiling standing infront of a wall with post-it notes on

From the beginning, I felt that I was trusted to use my expertise and experience to guide our work in charity and patient engagement, which was a great feeling. I had lots of ideas, and I just ran with them. I’ve also been very lucky to work with supportive colleagues who’ve helped me progress my work and ideas, especially at the time when I was a one-man band.

When I had the opportunity to present the results of my efforts to our senior leaders, the enthusiasm and curiosity from them were incredibly rewarding. And now, we have a team that I hope will soon evolve to offer a broader and more ambitious service to the charity sector that will be even more transformative for patients worldwide.

But the road wasn’t always smooth. When I first started, many people across the organisation didn’t fully understand what I did or why it mattered. It took time and effort to establish charity and patient engagement as the cornerstone of our work at LifeArc. Today, I’m proud to say that my work has helped lay the foundations for what would become a core part of our mission: to make an impact for patients with underserved healthcare needs.

There’s no other organisation that I can think of that does what we do; while many charities fund research or engage in science and technology transfer, only a few get close to the breadth of expertise that we provide. We’re in an incredibly unique position, and that’s something I take great pride in.

Looking ahead

What drives me every day, even after all these years, is knowing that I’m making a real difference in patients’ lives. A significant part of my role involves advising small charities, often founded by parents of children diagnosed with diseases and conditions that have no treatments. Through our guidance, many of these parents have successfully led their charities to the point of clinical trials. Witnessing these successes has been incredibly rewarding.

I love my job, and the greatest challenge I face now is deciding when to retire! There’s so much more we can do as an organisation, and I’m excited about what the future holds.

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