Maryam Atakhorrami

Dr Maryam Atakhorrami, holds the role of Senior Director at NovoNordisk R&D External Innovation for Assessment and Innovation, since October 2025. In this role, she is supporting the R&D strategic priorities through creating  innovative R&D partnerships.

Maryam holds PhD in biophysics from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2006) with speciality in physics of complex living systems.  Her career spans internationally across Medtech, Academia, startups, public and private investment, and Pharma. Maryam has dedicated her career to translating biomedical sciences through partnerships to impact for patients and healthcare system across variety of therapeutic areas in chronic disease management (respiratory, neuro degenerative conditions, and cardiometabolic diseases), with expertise in new product development for Diagnostics, Devices and Digital health from ideation to commercialisation. She has solid understanding of drug discovery process from target discovery through first in human experiments.

In nearly 20 years, Maryam has held strategic and operational leadership roles at Philips ( Innovation Program Manager), UCL ( Head of strategic Industrial Partnership) and HDRUK (COO- for London) before joining Novo Nordisk in 2022, as head of Regulatory Professionals in Digital Health and IVD. She joined the Development External Innovation in 2024, focusing on building R&D partnerships with Medtech Industry and Academia.