Profile - Kevin Young: CBE accolade recognises vital role played by the medicine man

When Kevin Young answered the phone in his San Francisco apartment one evening in May, the last thing he expected was the British Consulate to ask him if he would accept a CBE from the Queen.

“You go through a series of emotions,” he recounts. “First is utter shock, then a great deal of pride and then you’re told you can’t tell anybody for a month.

“The British Consulate gave me very strict guidance on confidentiality. I couldn’t even tell my immediate family. Not being able to tell my father was very hard as we’re very close.”

Young, who describes his father as “a wonderful 82-year-old man who lives between Pickering and Scarborough”, had to wait until one minute past midnight on June 11 – when the list is released by Buckingham Palace – before he could tell anyone.

Not wanting to wake his father in the middle of the night and worry him, Young waited patiently until the morning before calling.

“It was a very emotional call,” he recalls. “It was June 11, the birthday of my late mother. He always remembers that day. My announcement on that day was so poignant, so profound.”

Young, who was born in York before his family moved to Scarborough when he was ten, was appointed a Commander of The British Empire (CBE) for his services to healthcare, particularly to the development of life-changing medicines.

Young heads up Gilead Sciences in California, a company that provides the most frequently chosen antiretroviral medicines for the treatment of HIV in the developed world – the life-changing medicines referred to in the CBE citation.

What makes Gilead unique is that it delivers these HIV medicines at a no-profit price to almost 100 low-income countries and at sharply discounted prices to a total of 130 developing countries.

As a result, of the 2.1 million people worldwide receiving one of Gilead’s HIV treatments, two thirds (1.4 million) are in the developing world.

It was this mix of commercial success and strong ethical business practice in some of the HIV epidemic’s hardest-hit locations that made Young stand out.

With a refreshing display of self-deprecation, Young guffaws with laughter when I ask why he thinks he was given the CBE.

When I demand a serious answer he says: “I have spent 25 years in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. I was one of the pioneers in biotech. I’ve built an international career.

“The other part Gilead is very different. Big pharmaceuticals have been criticised for their greed, but we’re very small and nimble. We’ve always had a policy of no-profit pricing in the developing world.”

As part of this ethos, Gilead has granted licences to branded drugs to other companies if they can make them more cheaply.

“I think that was a very bold thing to do in an industry that protects its patents. As a leading manufacturer, we have responsibilities.”

Anyone thinking the CBE might have gone to Young’s head would be wrong.

“My sister became a doctor, my brother is a dentist. I’m surrounded by doctors and dentists. I always considered myself a failure in the family. I didn’t follow one of the professions – I was the one in the middle who got it wrong.”

Back in California, there were mixed reactions to his appointment.

“I had a range of reactions. One or two close colleagues understood how significant it is, they were so generous. Some people didn’t get it. I had to say that the actor Colin Firth had received a CBE and then they’d say ‘Wow! I understand now’. There’s been a lot of smiles and a lot of teasing about how it’s celebrities who get these things, like Sir Elton John, not me.”

Young will receive his CBE from either The Queen or The Prince of Wales towards the end of this year.

“You’re allowed to take three people. I will take my father and I’m yet to decide on the other two. I want to talk to my brother and sister; it might be quite a thrill to take my nieces who are 13 and 15. It would be nice to have three generations.”

In a world where many a UK boss has gone stateside and adopted that strange Lloyd Grossman transatlantic drawl, Young is proud to have retained his “Yorkshire vowels”, as he describes them.

“I’ve lived here almost 11 years, but I’ve still got this Yorkshire accent. I still feel British.”

Asked what has been the best part of his 25 years in the job, Young says it’s the people he has worked with.

“I’m most proud of the people I’ve managed who are now running companies and doing great things in other parts of healthcare.

“I’m proud to work for a company that has been critical to changing HIV from a death sentence to a chronic disease that can be well managed. If you’re aged 20 and HIV positive, you can go on the type of drugs my company has developed and you’ll have an average life expectancy of 70.”

At the moment Gilead is best known for Atripla, the only Single Tablet Regimen for the treatment of HIV – a single tablet taken once a day that contains the three different antiretrovirals required to successfully control the HIV virus and prevent progression to AIDS. Failure to take the three medicines at just the right times can make the virus resistant to treatment.

But the company’s next goal is to find a cure.

As Gilead’s executive vice president of commercial operations, Young leads the whole of the commercial organisation with 1,300 people worldwide reporting to him. He sees a drug through the whole life cycle from research and development, through manufacturing, delivery to pharmacies and hospitals and education about how the drugs should best be used.

He joined Gilead in 2004 after having worked for Amgen Inc and AstraZeneca (formerly ICI Pharmaceuticals).

Young attended Scarborough Boys High School and Scarborough Sixth Form College and his father still lives in Ebberston. He went on to take undergraduate and graduate degrees in Sports Science and Exercise from Liverpool John Moores University and Nottingham University and has completed the Executive Program at the University of Michigan.

Despite 11 years in California, Young still misses Yorkshire.

“York is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, I have a passion for it. I also love Scarborough, I was once a bingo caller in Scarborough. I was 17, working on the seafront.

“I love Whitby and Robin Hood’s Bay, the walk up to the Abbey. I love the whole sense of drama, the moors.

“You can take the boy out of Yorkshire, but you can’t take Yorkshire out of the boy.”

Kevin Young Factfile

Title: Executive vice president of commercial operations, Gilead Sciences

Date of birth: 1.11.57

Place of birth: York

Education: Scarborough Boys High School

First job: Sales representative for ICI in London, 1984

Car driven: Audi A5

Favourite film: Cinema Paradiso

Favourite holiday destination: “Scarborough, on a rainy day! No, I’d probably say the Northern Italian Lakes.”

Last book read: Days of Grace by Arthur Ashe. “Ashe was the most admirable sportsman. He died after being infected with HIV inadvertently.”

What I am most proud of: My father