Alex Lyness, PhD West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc.

Dr Alex Lyness joined West in 2016 and is based at the Global Headquarters in Exton, PA. He is responsible for identifying and evaluating new technologies and ideas that are transformational to West’s core drug containment and delivery platforms. He leads a dynamic interdisciplinary research team that collaborate internationally with high-calibre academic institutions and medtech start-ups to bring their technologies from potential, through feasibility to be integrated into next generation drug delivery systems.

Prior to West, Alex worked at Loughborough University after being awarded an Enterprise Fellowship and led the research and development of several delivery systems intended to deliver regenerative medicines. Whilst in academia he also consulted for 2 years as a Technical Lead on a collaborative-project with Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (London) that led to a CE-marked, patented a device capable of delivering cells to the upper layers of the skin to treat a rare genetic disease.

He gained his PhD in Mechanical Engineering whilst working as a Medical Device Engineer at Glide Pharmaceutical Technologies (Oxford) where he optimised their needle-free solid dose injection system that was later shown to be successful at a clinical trial. Alex is a Chartered Engineer with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.