Meet the Mentors

Kate Farrell

Catherine Lynn (Kate) Farrell, Director, Global Clinical Supply Chain, Amgen, Inc.
Catherine Lynn (Kate) Farrell Director, Global Supply Chain, Amgen, Inc.

"Kate has her goals in focus. She is outgoing, highly motivated, energetic, personable, and truly interested in what we have to say," reported one of the participants in the 2002 Minority and Indigenous Fellows Program, organized by the Biotechnology Institute in Toronto. This still rings true today in 2005.

Catherine Lynn (Kate) Farrell, Director, Global Clinical Supply Chain, at Amgen has been a mentor for several Fellows, helping them get the most out of attending the annual BIO Conference and exhibition, the largest gathering of biotechnology industry leaders and research scientists in the world.

Participants are impressed with Kate's career path from bench scientist to manager. Her honesty and candor as she expressed her trepidation at making such a big career move helps put them at ease.

Such insight is helpful as Fellows return to their communities. Monica Gorman is a case in point. Monica, an Associate Professor of Biology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, returned to her students with renewed understanding of the exciting career opportunities available to them in biotechnology. With Kate's help, Monica is implementing a biotechnology survey course to heighten awareness of biotechnology and its careers.

For the past 13 years, Kate Farrell has served in a variety of roles at Amgen; she recently assumed responsibility for the group managing the supply of drugs for Amgen's clinical studies. For the previous two years, she was the Oncology Therapeutic Area Head in Global Operations Planning and prior to that worked in Development on a product launch in Medical Affairs. Additionally, for two years, she was Product Team Leader on the transition of a pipeline product from Phase 2 to 3. Dr. Farrell initially joined Amgen as a research scientist in the preclinical organization. She has a PhD in biophysics from the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, and was a Medical Research Council of Canada Post Doctoral Fellow initially at UCLA, and then at the Max Plank Institute in Munich, Germany. Her areas of research expertise include vascular biology as well as epithelial biology and gastrointestinal pathology.