Dr. Paul Malik (BSc’16, PharmD’16, PhD’21) is the 2022 School of Pharmacy Alumni Achievement Award recipient. This award recognizes and celebrates pharmacy alumni who impact the health and wellbeing of society through professional work and/or public service contribution.
This award means a lot to me. My time at the University of Waterloo has been the biggest part of my life. I grew up at Waterloo. I entered the University at 17 and graduated almost a different person with my PhD at 28.
Dr. Paul Malik
Trained as a pharmacist and researcher, Malik is now a clinical scientist at Calico Life Sciences. Alongside the development team he is investigating a new compound for the treatment of ALS and Vanishing White Matter disease, both currently illnesses with no cure. The new compound, ABBV-CLS-7262, has completed initial clinical trials in healthy subjects and has moved into the second phase earlier this year.
“Becoming a researcher was never something I had planned. Dr. Andrea Edginton inspired a keen interest in me to understand how drugs move around and engage inside the body,” says Malik. “I took an upper year research project in her lab and then later joined her research team to complete my PhD.”
Malik enjoyed coming up with new research questions and figuring out how to answer them. Most of his PhD work involved investigating better medication dosing for vulnerable patient groups, such as children.
“I am very grateful to Dr. Edginton for creating space in her lab where different ideas were encouraged,” says Malik.
Malik loves being behind the scenes of pharmaceutical development. His close relationship with the pharmacy profession is important to his clinical trial designs that may one day inform drug labels.
“The drug development industry is the heart of where drug information is first generated,” Malik says.
His advice to current students thinking of careers in drug development is to experience different aspects of pharmaceutical science.
“Waterloo Pharmacy is the best place in Canada to foster the technical skills you need to excel in drug development,” says Malik. “Connect with your professors and engage with different fields. Learn everything you can and see what sticks.”
Malik encourages students to use co-op to try out different fields of pharmacy before graduating.
A variety of co-op work terms are available for students to pursue industry opportunities. Malik encourages students to soak in as many different experiences as they can before stepping into their careers.
Malik has authored 16 peer-reviewed articles on drug development and pharmacy practice and guest lectures at the School. His next goal is to bring treatments to people with rare neurodegenerative diseases.
Congratulations to Paul Malik!