Overview

Gender

male

Tom McKillop was born in Ayrshire, Scotland in 1943 and educated at Irvine Royal Academy, Glasgow University and Centre de Mécanique Ondulatoire Appliquée (Paris).

He joined ICI’s Corporate Research Laboratory at Runcorn in 1969 and his research interests ranged from synthetic chemistry to quantum mechanics and molecular biology. In 1975 he moved to ICI Pharmaceuticals Division and held a number of increasingly senior Research and Development positions until his appointment in 1989 as Technical Director and Deputy Chairman of ICI Pharmaceuticals, a role in which he had global responsibility for Research, Development, Medical and Production.

In 1994, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Zeneca Pharmaceuticals – Zeneca having demerged from ICI in 1993 – and, on completion of the merger of Astra and Zeneca in April 1999, he became Chief Executive of AstraZeneca PLC, a position he held until retiring on 31 December 2005.

His wider industry activities included periods as Chairman of the British Pharma Group, President of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Industry Task Force, and as a member of The European Round Table of Industrialists and the European Financial Round Table.

Sir Tom was president of The Science Council from 2007 – 2011 and is currently Chairman of Evolva Holdings SA and a non-executive director of Almirall SA and Theravectys SAS.

He has previously served as Chairman of the royal Bank of Scotland, and as a non-executive director of BP plc, Amersham International plc (now GE Healthcare) and Lloyds TSB plc.

During his career Sir Tom has received many scholarly awards and fellowships and was knighted in 2002 for services to the pharmaceutical industry.