Martin Preuveneers' Memories
John Ruskin Alumnus 1958-65

 Forms: 1G, 3U, 4U, 5U, 5U
 L6Sc, U6Sc

1962

2002

Interests or notable events at school: Orchestra and Army Cadet Force

The Next 30+ Years: After leaving school I went to Leeds University, studying Biochemistry and Zoology, where I had wonderful time. In 1969 I started a PhD in Biochemistry at St. Bartholomew's Medical College, London. In 1971 I married my first wife, whom I met at Leeds. Following my PhD I went into marketing of pharmaceuticals, and joined Beecham Research Laboratories in Brentford.

   In the mid-Seventies I went into marketing of medical diagnostics and moved to Miles Laboratories, where I started traveling a lot internationally. During the Seventies we had three children Simon (now 28, an accountant living in Switzerland), Rebecca (now 26, a teacher, living in Chile) and Katy (24, in her final year of medicine at Bristol University). At the end of the Seventies I went to live and work for Miles Laboratories in the United States, returning in 1982 when I joined Glaxo Holdings in charge of worldwide marketing of respiratory products.

   In 1987 I took responsibility for the marketing of Zantac. Sadly, I got divorced in 1986 and had a single life into the early-Nineties. After attending INSEAD business school in France in 1990, I went on to live in Verona, Italy, for two years, still working for Glaxo. Returning in 1993, I worked in central London reporting to the main board. I also remarried in that year to Maxine, an American.

   I then decided to move into biotechnology and ran a gene-therapy company in the UK and then, in 1999, moved to run a start-up biotech company in California, where I am now living.

   I think the type of education at John Ruskin made me want to keep proving myself to the world and remain quite restless; I moved house more than 30 times!

Martin Preuveneers February 2002 +1.510.337-1250 email