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Paul Kippax: Leveraging deep scientific expertise to uncover hidden customer insights and open up new marketing opportunities in life science
Our "Life, Science and Marketing" podcast, hosted by BioStrata CEO Paul Avery, showcases enlightening conversations with prominent marketing figures in the life sciences sector. In every episode, these guests delve into their personal stories, professional experiences, and offer guidance on marketing strategies and industry best practices.
In episode 12, Paul spoke with Paul Kippax, a scientific expert turned marketing leader who has spent 25+ years with Malvern Panalytical in various roles spanning product management, marketing, and sales. With a PhD in physical chemistry, Paul discussed how a chance conference discovery revealed opportunities to apply his scientific knowledge to help researchers develop inhaled drug formulations. This ultimately sparked a passion for connecting with customers through marketing.
Paul offered valuable perspectives on collaborating deeply with customers, seizing opportunities to extract new analytical insights, and building cross-functional understanding between technical and commercial teams. Read on for a recap of Paul's interview and his insights on leveraging scientific expertise to unlock marketing opportunities, delivering sustained value to your core customer “tribe”, and continuously experimenting to drive incremental improvement. You can also listen to their full discussion in the podcast episode below or find us on your favourite podcast platform.
How did you end up spending 25 years at Malvern Panalytical?
Paul Kippax: I started at Malvern in 1997 as an application scientist after completing my PhD in physical chemistry. Over the past 25+ years, I've had the opportunity to take on various roles in product management, marketing, and sales, and I've learned so much and gotten to work with a diverse range of customers. I started out doing technical support for our product ranges. It's been rewarding to encourage colleagues to connect with customers as well. It's always been interesting, so I've just stayed here and continued to grow my career.
What was the conference and discovery that sparked your interest in marketing?
Paul Kippax: I attended a drug delivery to the lungs conference. Seeing researchers discuss inhaling pharmaceuticals instead of injections made me want to get close to them. I realized our physical chemistry expertise could help with issues around reproducible drug delivery to different patient groups. Marketing gave me a chance to connect those capabilities to real customer challenges. After writing up a visit report, I was asked to be the product manager for that range. My first marketing agency meeting opened my eyes to the power of connecting with customers and sharing stories.
Could you tell the first marketing campaign was going to be successful?
Paul Kippax: We published an article with two key opinion leaders in Pharmaceutical Technology Europe. Seeing our work featured in print with leaders in the industry was incredible. The response was hugely positive and led to connections with more key opinion leaders who wanted to work with us. I couldn't believe I was doing this coming from a science background, but I rode the wave of success from there.
What’s been the most interesting product or scientific area you’ve worked on?
Paul Kippax: Drug delivery to the lungs remains my favourite area. I loved realising our expertise in physical chemistry was so relevant to researchers developing inhaled drug formulations. We were able to use our analytical techniques in new ways to extract valuable data for customers. I worked closely with them to solve problems and uncover new analysis approaches no one had thought of before. Seeing our data referenced in FDA guidance documents was incredibly rewarding.
I also loved partnering with researchers like Julie Suman, who started a 4-person company in a university basement. We took a risk providing them an analytical system to evaluate. Her company grew rapidly and was acquired by Aptar Pharma. We co-presented work at conferences that influenced industry guidance documents. It showed the value of getting deep into customer workflows to uncover hidden analytical insights through collaboration.
What’s been the biggest impact of the pandemic on connecting with customers?
Paul Kippax: Not being able to meet customers face-to-face or have a coffee with them has been a big shift. Their time is more precious now, so we have to carefully consider how to retain engagement through different digital marketing and sales approaches. The key is focusing on meeting customer needs beyond the initial purchase - becoming more integrated in how they use our solutions. This means we’re better equipped to understand emerging questions and future areas of interest.
What do you think is hardest about aligning marketing and sales teams?
Paul Kippax: It’s understanding each other’s distinct pressures and jobs more clearly. Marketing wants to provide sales with all the customer details possible to personalise messaging, while sales simply needs the key details to have an effective customer conversation. Collaboration is critical - marketing shouldn’t just expect sales to deliver demand, while sales needs concise, not overwhelming, enablement to succeed. Empathy for each role leads to better alignment on strategy.
What’s your best marketing tip?
Paul Kippax: Don’t get bored repeating relevant messages just because your company knows a product so well. Audiences constantly change even if needs stay the same. For example, we ran specialised webinars for 8+ years because customers kept attending and sharing them with new colleagues. Experiment with new tactics, but stay consistent delivering core value your tribe of customers relies on. And don’t try to do it all alone - collaborate with other experts to create great marketing.
Discover more insights with the Life, Science & Marketing Podcast
As we conclude this discussion with Paul Kippax, we'd like to thank him for generously sharing his extensive expertise and experiences from over 25 years in the life sciences industry. Paul enjoys engaging in further discussions and exchanging ideas, so feel free to connect with him on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.
Remember to stay tuned for the next episode of "Life, Science and Marketing" where we’ll feature more insightful interviews and actionable advice from leading experts in our field. You can also follow the official Life, Science and Marketing LinkedIn page to keep up-to-date with the latest podcast news and episodes.
We hope you found value in Paul’s perspectives on leveraging scientific knowledge to unlock marketing opportunities, sustained engagement with your core “tribe” of customers, and continuously experimenting to drive incremental improvement. Tune in next time for more marketing wisdom at the intersection of science and business.
