Melanie Lee

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Melanie Georgina Lee CBE (born 29 July 1958) is an English pharmaceutical executive and the CEO of LifeArc, a role she has held since November 2018 after taking over from Dave Tapolczay. She helped make important advances in cell cycle research; Paul Nurse later credited her work on finding a human version of the yeast gene cdc2.

Education and early work
- She earned a biology degree from the University of York, studying with Simon Hardy, and completed a PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research in London.
- She did postdoctoral work in molecular genetics, first at Imperial College London on yeast, then from 1985 with Paul Nurse at the ICRF’s Lincoln's Inn Laboratories. Nurse praised her lab work, saying she made a breakthrough by complementation. Lee has since recalled discomfort with the competition in the lab.

Career highlights
- In 2003, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
- Her industry career began at Glaxo in 1988; she left academia after becoming pregnant.
- She joined Celltech in 1998 as Director of R&D, later held the same role at UCB Pharmaceuticals, and was CEO of Syntaxin Ltd from 2010 to 2013.
- She has served as Chair and Deputy Chair Trustee at Cancer Research Technology and Cancer Research UK, and has sat on the boards of Lundbeck and, more recently, Sanofi. She is a Trustee of the Dementia Research Institute.
- She founded NightstaRx, becoming its CEO in 2014; NightstaRx is a Syncona/Wellcome Trust company.
- She has also been chief scientific officer of BGT Plc and has founded Think10, a business advisory company.
- She advised on the Dowling Review of business–university research collaborations (2014–15).

Awards and honors
- In January 2019, she received the BIA Lifetime Achievement Award.
- She was awarded the CBE in 2009 for services to medical science and was named in 2014 by the Science Council as one of the UK’s top 100 leading practising scientists.
Personal life
- Melanie Lee lives in London with her husband, Christopher, and they have two sons.