Mr Paul McDonald

Mr Paul McDonald is a pharmaceutical development executive with over 25 years in the industry. As the current Chief Executive Officer of ASX listed company IDT Australia, Mr McDonald has been instrumental in redefining the company’s strategy and aligning the organisation for growth.

Mr McDonald commenced as a bench scientist in his early career, synthesizing many small molecules both novel and commercial. He worked his way into R&D laboratories developing new pharmaceutical products particularly in the oncology space, spending much of his career working on modified release and tumour targeting therapies and being involved in more than 20 oncolytic molecules coming to market. Later, Mr McDonald was promoted within Pfizer as a leader and became responsible for departments within operations, manufacturing science and technology and research and development.

Mr McDonald has worked across small capital companies right up to multinationals and has held key executive and senior management roles. He held the role of pipeline Development Director, Pfizer Australia and was responsible for a product pipeline of ~US$350m p.a. Prior to this role, Mr McDonald held the role of Head of Contract Manufacturing for Pfizer Melbourne growing the business from US$8m to US$40m within five years.

Mr McDonald has collaborated with several multinational pharmaceutical companies throughout his career including Pfizer, Novartis, Merck, Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Gilead and is considered a subject matter expert in the development, technology transfer and registration of pharmaceuticals. He enjoys nurturing talent and has played an active role in developing undergraduates within the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Monash University. Mr McDonald is an inaugural member of the Monash Manufacturing Medicines Innovation Centre Industry Advisory Board.

Mr McDonald has formal qualifications with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Graduate Diploma in Biomedical Sciences and is a graduate of the Monash Global Executive MBA program.

Outside of work, Mr McDonald is a fan of sport and has coached cricket clubs in Australia, England and Northern Ireland. More recently Mr McDonald has enjoyed coaching his children’s teams in basketball and cricket. He is a natural coach and brings this skill and philosophy into his career developing many established and emerging scientists within the Melbourne ecosystem.