Christine Dao is a Regulatory Affairs Associate who joined Sanofi Australia in 2018. She’s passionate about healthcare and using her communication skills to help improve patients’ quality of lives and drive healthcare forward. Soaking in the fresh air while on long walks and bopping to her favourite tunes, she can also bend her thumb down to touch her forearm!
In her own words...meet Christine.
What did you want to be when you were young?
When I was eight years ago my dad was admitted into hospital. It was pretty scary for me being so young but when I looked at the people caring for him and giving him the attention that he needed I knew I wanted to be in healthcare. I knew I wanted to be a pharmacist. When I was in high school, I wasn’t sure I would get the marks I needed to study pharmacy but with lots of hard work I was able to transfer into this area of study in my second year of university.
How has having a patient focus influenced the work you do each day?
After working as a registered pharmacist and interacting with patients everyday I wanted to explore how I could play a larger role. How could I take this passion and apply it to bringing new medicines to more patients? That’s when I decided to explore pharmaceuticals.
How can I make this better for patients’ every day.
Describe what you do at Sanofi?
I work in Regulatory Affairs which is responsible for collating information that ensures medicines are safe for patients and work in the way they are intended. We also help tell that story to organisations like the Therapeutic Good Administration (TGA) to help bring new products to market or extend indications to existing products in Australia. I also manage any possible medicines shortages as I know how important it is for patients to have reliable access to their treatments.
During the initial stages of COVID what did Sanofi offer you?
Sanofi as a global pharmaceutical company could see the strains on healthcare systems around the world. They reached out to all the registered healthcare professionals in the organisation and supported us to volunteer. It was great to go out and support the community by working in my local pharmacy. But I wouldn’t have been able to do it without the support of my team. They all had my back and it was a great opportunity help people in need.
As an early career professional how does Sanofi support your learning?
I’ve always been keen to learn and extend myself. I started at Sanofi in pharmacovigilance (product safety) as a short-term contractor. With a commitment to hard work I made my way into regulatory. In this team, there is a lot of importance placed on continuous learning. Every week we have a session with the entire team to go through our previous week and do a bit of self reflection. We share with the team what we’ve learnt about ourselves how we can do things better. With these sessions it really brings out our confidence and our vulnerability that helps us learn from each other. We also have a bounty of resources available through Sanofi University, learning bootcamps and regular webinars.
What kind of person would thrive in a role like yours at Sanofi?
To be successful in a role like mine you need to be curious, ask questions and continue learning. Be courageous and keep challenging yourself, and be connected, you need to build the relationships.