Kirsten Chalmers, MChem, MSc

Kirsten joined Symmetron following the completion of the Health Economics MSc at the University of York, where she gained exposure to different methods of health economic evaluation. During her MSc she undertook a placement with the National Centre of Pharmacoeconomics (NCPE) in Dublin, where she built a bespoke economic model to assess the cost-effectiveness of erenumab and fremanezumab, two prophylactic treatments for patients with chronic migraine.

In addition to her Health Economics MSc, she also holds a Chemistry with Medicinal Chemistry (MChem) degree from the University of St Andrews. During her MChem, Kirsten gained an awareness and appreciation of the early stages of drug development. She undertook two research projects during her MChem, the first using machine learning to predict skin sensitisation properties of organic compounds and the second synthesising biologically active compounds from renewable sources, with the aim of finding novel antibiotic precursors. She was also successful in the Saltire Scholar Internship Programme run by Entrepreneurial Scotland, undertaking an internship with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). There she gained an insight into the process of bringing drugs to market.