Catie Matthews on navigating the AI boom

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After earning her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at Princeton, Catie Matthews, Ph.D., followed it with an MBA and a doctorate in chemical engineering practice, both from MIT.

Those degrees represent the two different interests—in the worlds of both business and science—that have shaped Matthews’ career so far, first at Boston Consulting Group and, for the past six years, at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, where she was promoted to director of rare disease consumer marketing in October.

While she’s more than comfortable navigating the overlapping worlds of science and business strategy in the biopharma industry, it is the human element of her job that has left the greatest impact on Matthews, she said in a recent interview. That’s been especially evident through her work with Regeneron’s patient ambassador programs, where she’s seen firsthand the resilience of patients and the improvements that new treatments can bring to their lives.

In a Q&A for Fierce Pharma Marketing’s “Rising Stars” series, Matthews shared more about how marketers need to embrace artificial intelligence in their own lives and how her background in chemical engineering intersects with one of her passions outside of work.

Responses have been lightly edited.

Fierce Pharma Marketing: What led you to biopharma marketing, and what keeps you motivated in your current role?

Catie Matthews: I’ve always been interested in the intersection between the science and the business, and the business strategy, of this industry. There’s been an amazing amount of innovation in the science over my lifetime, and there continues to be, when you think about new targets, new modalities, gene therapy, cell therapy and more—but none of it is effective if you can’t actually get it to patients and you can’t see that play out.

Marketing serves as the bridge that’s about bringing those new technologies to doctors and patients and explaining them so they can understand the benefits. It’s about making new technologies as impactful as they can be.

FPMK: What has been one of the most rewarding or challenging projects that you’ve worked on?

CM: One that’s been really amazing to work on is our patient ambassador program, which I’ve led for our product Evkeeza, a treatment for homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. I’ve been able to work with some of these patients and some of their parents directly.

These patients, these individuals, have been through so much. Many of them have had heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular events at very young ages. It’s just amazing to hear how resilient they are and how much hope they still have for the future. Hearing about the benefits that they’ve seen from Evkeeza, how well they’re doing on the drug and how lucky they feel to be on it has been very motivating and very rewarding.

FPMK: If you could give one piece of advice to people who have worked in the industry for decades, what would it be?

CM: The biggest thing right now is that the way people obtain information is fundamentally changing with the rise of AI. Obviously, this has been a hot topic in the news and everywhere, but I think it’s critical for us as marketers to update our approach and meet people where they are, whether HCPs or consumers, in this new market where we don’t have as much control and there’s a lot of zero-click search.

People aren’t necessarily going to your website, so how do you make sure that your product is out there, that the awareness is getting built, that your messages are getting pulled through and are actually getting to people? And also, how do you make sure that you’re comfortable with it yourself? I think as marketers, we probably need to be using it a lot more in our day-to-day lives so that we can understand how consumers are using it as well.

FPMK: What do you like to do outside of work?

CM: I’m not at the lab anymore, but I feel like I use my chemical engineering when I’m cooking. I’m a big cook, and I always like to try new recipes. I like to try new techniques, different ways of cooking things, different ways of sneaking vegetables into my kids’ food. That’s definitely a passion of mine.