Adam Walker’s Pharma Prescribed Podcast

Alen Hadzic — founder and CEO of Clinical Trial Scan, Olympic fencer and patent-pending inventor of Dyno AI — joins Adam Walker for one of the most data-driven conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Alen's path to clinical trials started with Facebook ads, a friend called Artyom, and $5–7 million in advertising spend across 50 studies. When margins got squeezed, he didn't walk away — he t...

Dr. Pat Boulogne — performance optimisation strategist, functional medicine expert and bestselling author — joins Adam Walker for one of the most practical wellbeing conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Dr. Pat is 71, takes zero medications, works 14-hour days with full mental clarity, and has spent 30+ years helping high performers close the gap between where they are and where they wa...

Adam Walker sits down with Andy York — statistician, clinical data science leader, and former VP of Clinical Data Science at Novo Nordisk — for a masterclass in where pharma's data revolution has been, where it's heading, and why the AI hype needs a reality check.
With over 30 years spanning Roche, Covance, and Novo Nordisk, Andy now advises Verisian, a company building next-generation AI and trac...

Dermot Whelan — broadcaster, comedian, bestselling author and certified meditation teacher — joins Adam Walker for one of the most personal and practical conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. This episode holds a special place — meeting Dermot in Prague in early 2025,  in the middle of my own grief, was one of the moments that led to this podcast existing. Dermot left his radio show at T...

⚠️ This episode discusses suicide, traumatic brain injury, and grief. Please take care if these topics are difficult for you. Sharmila Hume — known as the "Biomedic Detective" — joins Adam Walker for one of the most profound and wide-ranging conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Originally trained as a telecoms engineer, Sharmila rebuilt her life after her own battle with ME and fibromya...

Bilal Bham — founder and CEO of Amodaia — joins Adam Walker to explore what it really takes to guide a biotech, pharma or medtech company through its most critical decision points. Bilal brings nearly two decades of life sciences experience across regulatory affairs, medical affairs, market access, marketing communications and fundraising. But what sets him apart is the lens through which he appro...

Adam Baumgart — biometrics and risk consultant with 38 years across AstraZeneca, Covance and beyond — joins Adam Walker for a masterclass in risk-based quality management, the future of clinical trials, and what it actually takes to build a career worth having. Adam fell into clinical research in 1988 when data was collected on non-carbon required paper. He's watched the industry move from paper f...

Helen Palk — general practice lead nurse with nearly 30 years in the NHS — joins Adam Walker for one of the warmest and most grounded conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Inspired by her grandmother, an army nurse who cared for injured troops during the Second World War, Helen's path began behind a pharmacy counter and took her through urology, theatre recovery, midwifery and finally to...

Steven Thompson — founder of Next Trial AI — joins Adam Walker to explain why 85% of clinical trials are delayed before a single patient is enrolled, and what he's building to fix it. Steven spent two decades in high-stakes regulatory environments: first with American Airlines on FAA compliance, then with Embraer in Brazil, then building data engineering pipelines for oncology and vaccines at Biog...

⚠️ This episode discusses suicide loss and grief. Please take care. If you need support: Samaritans → 116 123 (UK, free, 24/7) Amelia Wrighton — co-founder and CEO of Suicide&Co — joins Adam Walker for the most personal conversation on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Amelia lost her mother to suicide at 19. She navigated that grief alone, without signposting, without counseling, suppressing eve...

Scott Schliebner — founder of Ascent Biostrategies and veteran of nearly 30 years across biotech, CROs and nonprofit life sciences — joins Adam Walker for a candid, longitudinal view of how drug development actually evolves. And how often it refuses to. From being one of the first to transition a clinical team from paper CRFs to electronic data capture, to building DCT infrastructure at PRA Health...

Helene Quie — cell biologist turned MedTech CEO — joins Adam Walker for a wide-ranging conversation about what it really takes to get a medical device from concept to market. Helene founded qmmed Consulting in 2006 after senior roles at Cook Medical, where she entered an industry she describes as "cowboy land" — a Wild West of medical device regulation that has since evolved into one of the most c...

Sylvain Berthelot — clinical technology professional, CRS Cube, and host of two podcasts — joins Adam Walker to talk about what it really means to simplify clinical trials, and why the industry's use of "patient-centricity" is often hollow. Sylvain started his podcast On One Condition because he was reviewing 10 clinical protocols a week and none of them mentioned patients. Today he talks to peopl...

Dr. Thibault Geoui — scientist, Director of Transformation at Zühlke and host of the Tech and Drugs podcast — joins Adam Walker to explore what happens when engineers from gaming, finance and social media turn their attention to drug discovery. Thibault is a biologist by training who moved into digital health strategy, built data products at Charles River Laboratories and now leads pharma lab auto...

Jurate Lasiene — PhD neurobiology, clinical research leader and rare disease consultant — joins Adam Walker for one of the most globally grounded conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Jurate's story starts in a newly independent Lithuania, at an airport with $400 and a one-way ticket to America. From there: a PhD, a postdoc in Tokyo, careers across three continents, and eventually a spec...

Sam Usher — founder of Steam Works, former professional dancer, ITV filmmaker and sailing broadcaster — joins Adam Walker for one of the most unexpected and life-affirming conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Sam's career has reinvented itself three times. First: twelve years as a dancer and choreographer, training at Ballet Rambert and the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, perform...

Duncan Kemp — founder of Saltware Solutions and life sciences software veteran — joins Adam Walker for an honest conversation about redundancy, reinvention and what it really takes to build something of your own. Duncan's career began in 1998 in his father's startup, developing bedside data collection software for phase one trials. Over two decades he navigated acquisitions, led teams across conti...

Tom Farrand — CEO and co-founder of Delfa — joins Adam Walker for a fast-moving conversation about AI agents, patient recruitment and what it takes to build a startup from scratch. Tom's career has sat at the intersection of AI and life sciences: IBM helping hospitals model 3D heart scans, then leading AI rollouts for Janssen, Medtronic and Exscientia. Now building Delfa — an AI-native operating s...

Poorya Amini — founder and CEO of Risklick — joins Adam Walker to explain why clinical trial protocols have been written the same way since 1996 and what he's doing to change that. Poorya trained as a veterinarian, completed a PhD in pharmacology and spent years managing cardiology trials at the University of Bern. Then came the amendment horror story: 12 months of KOL collaboration, a world-class...

Anna Maxwell — founder and CEO of Maxwellia — joins Adam Walker for a conversation about one of the most underappreciated engines of healthcare innovation: drug reclassification. Anna is a pharmacist with over 30 years in retail pharmacy and consumer healthcare. She started as a buyer at Boots, watched the early switches of Nurofen, Imodium and nicotine patches, and spent her career asking why mor...

Matt Veatch — co-founder and COO of Navidence and host of Real World Wednesdays — joins Adam Walker for one of the most technically rich conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Matt spent nearly 30 years in clinical research — from the National Jewish Center for Immunology to Quintiles, where he watched electronic medical records emerge in the mid-2000s and knew he wanted to be part of it....

Nives Rombini — co-founder of Navis Bio and former data scientist at BMS and Swisscom — joins Adam Walker for one of the most forward-looking conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Nives grew up half Italian, half Swiss, watching Piero Angela explain science on Saturday nights with homemade pizza. She studied biology, taught herself to code in R, built a career in immunology research and...

Alan Salter — Navy veteran, management consultant and co-founder of Nonprofit Resource Partners — joins Adam Walker for a grounded, values-driven conversation about service, leadership and the art of being brilliant at the basics. Alan is third-generation military. His grandfather drove tanks with Patton in World War II. His dad was a pharmacist-turned-Army-colonel. Alan joined the Navy, built a w...

Maya Zlatanova — CEO and co-founder of Find Me Cure and Trial Hub — joins Adam Walker for one of the most human and high-stakes conversations on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Maya studied history and geography in Bulgaria, became a mom, watched her sister battle a disease with no standard of care, and decided someone needed to fix the part of clinical research that everyone knew was broken. Ten y...

Dr. Daniel Fox — CEO of CRPN (Clinical Research Payment Network) — joins Adam Walker for the most emotionally raw and structurally radical conversation on the Pharma Prescribed Podcast. Daniel is a PhD scientist, former CRA and director of clinical research who has worked every side of the industry. He is also the father of Violet, who died of I-cell disease (mucolipidosis) on Christmas morning, a...