Even at a young age, Nermeen Varawalla had a passion for business, however as an ambitious girl growing up in Mumbai, India, her family encouraged her to pursue medicine instead. She went on to earn her Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery and then an MD in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Mumbai. During that time, she worked as a resident doctor in OBGYN at the KEM Group of University Hospitals in Mumbai.
Later, Varawalla moved to the UK, where she earned a Ph.D. as a Rhodes Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and worked as a specialist in OBGYN within the UK’s National Health Service, leading a team of 50 doctors, midwives and nurses.
Varawalla found perinatal medicine to be interesting and rewarding. Her doctoral research utilized cutting-edge molecular medicine and biotechnology tools to characterize beta-thalassaemia mutations in Asian Indians to form the basis for early pregnancy diagnosis. Beta-thalassaemia is a blood disorder that reduces the production of hemoglobin, the iron-containing protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to cells throughout the body. Varawalla also studied preimplantation diagnosis of beta-thalassaemia. Yet all the while, her passion for business remained strong.
“It was a very gratifying and fulfilling time, but I didn’t see myself continuing on with academic medicine for the rest of my career,” Varawalla said. “I was not that excited about the practice of clinical medicine but was deeply committed to the healthcare sector.”
Varawalla pursued her MBA at INSEAD in France, which was an incredible experience that broadened her knowledge and experiences and led her to her first business role as a business strategy consultant with Accenture in London. There she worked on everything from ambitious drug development redesign programs to delivering business transformational strategy for oncology companies.
“My MBA helped me to make the leap from clinical medicine to becoming a businesswoman in the healthcare sector,” Varawalla said.
In various roles throughout the years, her business endeavors have ranged from including emerging countries in global clinical trials to setting up India’s first “named patient” medicines business to leading the completion of patient recruitment for pivotal, product registration clinical trials.
In her current role as managing director of London-based Clinstrat Ltd, a life science and healthcare business consultancy that serves investors in the healthcare sector, Varawalla is working on the build-up of an integrated global specialty pharmaceutical business.
“From where I sit now, I believe that the sweet spot for a successful healthcare business lies at the intersection of what’s good for the patient, based on robust, sustainable science and what delivers long-term investor return in the healthcare sector,” Varawalla said.
As for her career’s winding journey, Varawalla said her passion for healthcare remained vibrant in each and every role. That passion continued to move her forward to see out new opportunities and take on fulfilling challenges.
