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Technology and Security (TS) explores the intersections of emerging technologies and security. It is hosted by Dr Miah Hammond-Errey. Each month, experts in technology and security join Miah to discuss pressing issues, policy debates, international developments, and share leadership and career advice. https://miahhe.com/about-ts | https://stratfutures.com
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Welcome to Technology and Security. TS is a podcast exploring the intersections of emerging technologies and national security. I'm your host, Dr. Miah Ham-mond-Errey. I'm the founding CEO of Strat Futures Proprietary Limited and adjunct associate professor at Deakin University. My guest today is Dr. Adrian De Grazia. Thanks for joining me on Technology and
Security.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Thanks, thanks for having me, Miah. Nice to see you.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: You too. Adrain is currently the Global Intelligence Lead at Pfizer. His work focuses on combating counterfeit medicines and driving digital solutions for global securi-ty. Prior to joining Pfizer in 2020, he spent 10 years at the Australian Federal Police in a range of senior forensics roles. He has a PhD in forensic chemistry. He is a board member for React Group's anti -counterfeit network and a council member for the Australian Academy of Forensic Science. We're coming to you today from the lands of the Gadigal people. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge their continuing connection to land, sea, and community.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: In the context of Pfizer, what does global security mean and what are the global security functions?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, sure. So as I'm sure many of you know, Pfizer is a pharmaceutical
firm. We're 80 ,000 odd colleagues strong and we have a current goal to reach a billion patients a year. So global securities function ranges from protecting our colleagues and our sites all the way through to protecting every patient that takes one of our medicines.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: And so for many listeners in the context of this podcast, you know, when we talk about security, we're often talking about government functions. In your context, as the global intelligence lead, what is your main area of focus?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, so my main focus is product integrity for patient safety, which is our PIPS program. So essentially what that is protecting is the integrity of our products, ensuring that every time a patient takes a Pfizer medication, They're taking one that's real, that's being produced by one of our manufacturing facilities and has gone through our legitimate supply chain to either reach the hospital, the pharmacy, or in some countries, the online retailer that they're purchasing from.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Can you describe for us the size of that problem?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, definitely. And coming from law enforcement, I think I'm still shocked, you know, like we were talking, obviously, these tons of of illicit drugs like your cocaine and your heroin, we're talking counterterrorism, crimes. And now we're moving into a crime where people are actually trying to get a product to save their life or or enhance their life. And someone's taken that away from them by producing something that's fake. So the The official statistics are that it is the biggest counterfeit market in the world. It's 1 % of all medicines in high income earning countries and 10 % of drugs globally that are in the market are counterfeit. So it's huge. We're talking a $400
plus billion industry.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Like you, having spent a lot of time working in the illicit space, it is absolutely shocking that there is so much energy invested in manufacturing counterfeit medi-cines and pharmaceuticals. Is this like a jurisdictional issue? Is this, you know, a village mar-ket? Like where are those manufacturers happening?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, so it's all the way through. So we see, you know, those kind of really small village pharmacies, village markets, like you said, through to the producers in, you know, if anyone spent some time in Asia and China, you go into those, you know, counterfeit markets where you can buy handbags or electronic equipment, there's a similar market for medicinal products. You can go in as a distributor, looking for counterfeit products, all the way through to your online
marketplaces. So, you know, in the US, they have what's called the Canadian pharmacies, which pose a problem for them over there. In the APAC region, we have e -commerce sites and social media, which is a big issue for selling counterfeit products. And in your European market, it's a lot of just standalone websites acting as online pharmacies as well.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Yeah, so supply chain integrity must be a huge challenge in this con-text for Pfizer. In terms of a broader range of pharmaceutical products, how can the user have faith in that supply chain and are there ways they can increase their confidence?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: So for a patient that's taking, you know, a medication regularly, most of them get pretty good at recognizing changes in the packs. And a lot of our referrals actually come through our patient complaint hotline. So Pfizer, like any other pharmaceutical company, has a really good program to hear from consumers. So you can ring up and ask about the integri-ty of your pack, you know, the shape or size or color of the tablets that you're taking or check serial numbers. We're just about to launch an in the U .S. where users will be able to actually scan a barcode, and that'll tell
them if that is a genuine lot number.
But we also invest very heavily in kind of technologies on our packs. So things to look out for, you know, like holograms, temp -relevant seals. We have like some hidden items that are used for our own identification and general spelling mistakes, you know, like have a look at your box, you'll be surprised how many counterfeit boxes spell Pfizer wrong, you know.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: This year in May, I think a large interpol operation went to resolution called Operation Pangea 17. It resulted in the seizure of over 50 million doses of illicit pharma-ceuticals and hundreds of arrests, can you talk us through your involvement and why it's im-portant to be engaged in these kind of programs?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, sure. So, you know, obviously Pfizer's a company. We're not a regula-tory agency or law enforcement. So anything that we do, any action that we do have in terms of, you know, seizures or arrests, we rely on partnerships with those agencies. We invest quite heavily into the education and awareness piece of those authorities. So all throughout the world where our investigators are based, they're running training courses, both in person and online, with your customs agencies, with your police and health agencies to share about, you know, the problem that is counterfeit medicines, but also on a kind of more tactical level that identification piece. This is what you look out for. This is some of the signs that we're seeing. These are some of
our problem regions at the moment.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: While we don't get directly involved with something like Operation PNGR, we're there in the background to test any product that does get seized to confirm that it's coun-terfeit if it's ours. So we've got a laboratory in the US that does that. We're there to provide ad-vice on what
medications are prescription, for example, which are not, you know, how they should be trans-ported. Are they a cold chain product? Can they be stored on a shelf? Those kinds of things. And then in the background, we've done all that education and awareness about the counter-feit issue to help those agencies, you know, be aware and know what to look out for.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: You did a PhD in forensic chemistry and I know that you are really interested in emerging technologies and have done a lot in that space. So I want to get your re-flections on what you see as the most interesting, maybe concerning trends in forensics and technology and security.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, sure. So it's really interesting. Actually, if I think back to my PhD, we
were using large language models. We were using massive data modeling techniques that now get encompassed in the general term of AI. Back then we called it, you know, key metrics and machine learning, and we weren't talking about artificial intelligence. And if I probably, you know, would have kept on that line, I may be in a different position right now. But I think what In terms of the framework of kind of security, it's just the ability to access information so readily now. So information is so easy to get. I'm gonna take it back to the pharmaceutical issue just for one moment. There's a product that's currently for sale on the market, on the black market, it's not one of Pfizer's products. So I won't say its name, but it hasn't finished its clinical trials yet. But just because of the ability for people to access information, the speed of technology, the speed of looking at clinical trial data that may be available in the public domain, which proba-bly wasn't accessible to most of the population before. People in large manufacturing hubs like India or China are saying, hey, we can make this and we can sell it five years before the phar-maceutical company has gone through the process of
getting it approved.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: It really has opened up a whole new world hasn't it? That's occurring in the illicit space as well and has been for many decades where slight shifts to structures can create new and novel substances that take time to be banned.
Where do you think that will take us?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, So touching on that novel, you know, substances piece, that was kind of the essence of the PhD, right, trying to develop a technique that would kind of pick those up. Because at the time, the techniques that we had in law enforcement weren't able to do that quickly. And even if they were detect that something was a bit different, you know, we were talking, you know,
weeks sometimes before we actually knew what it was, and then then entered the kind of, you know, fentanyl crisis, which still is ongoing in the US and has touched our shores here in Austral-ia as well, that put all security personnel at risk because firstly, we couldn't identify what it was. So then we didn't know how to treat it, how to store it, how to handle it. And then it took time for the legislation to catch up as well, right? So it took time for the legislation in Australia and across the world to be able to actually do something about these products. In terms of where it's going, I mean, I think the whole concept of drug discovery, and like you said, just changing different structures means that they can't be legislated against. But they could also use that the other way around and they could
say, okay, how do we look at drug discovery from an enhancement point of view? Let's change this product to give it because we want this intended effect. There's there's tools that can do that right and some companies are using it for good And you have your your actors much like, you know, and this is not my area of expertise But The same thing I'm sure is happening in kind of chemical warfare,
right? Everyone's looking for that next piece to inflict some kind of power to have the power. And whether you're doing that for good or bad, I think technology is really accelerating the pace that that's happening. And like you said before, you know, the companies have to go through this whole regulatory framework before they can sell it. But in the black market, you sell it whenever you've made it, or sometimes before.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: I am really fascinated about the CBRNE space and, you know, chem-ical biological weapons particularly and how we do detect them and actually disrupt the net-works before that happens, before they're actually deployed in our civilian environments, which is, you know, ultimately where they're intended to have maximum impact.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: And how do we keep up, right? Like how do the government side from a detection enforcement and regulatory side, how do we keep up with that? Because as you know, and I know from past that framework, doesn't really let things happen quickly.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Absolutely. I mean, I think operationally, you can have the speed, but then when you actually, you've picked up the trend and you actually need to have some kind of legislative or policy response. And that is natural, but at the same time, so many of these, the technology and the sciences are converging so quickly, it can sometimes be difficult to get poli-cymaker focus for long enough to enough to actually bring about the change that's needed, and with so many challenges across different spectrums, whether you're talking about AI productiv-ity, patient safety, national security, there's so many issues that require policymaker attention. Something you said in your first response, actually, in terms of our region, and of course, we've always done that in the illicit drug space, The Australian illicit drug landscape is quite different to the US, to European jurisdictions and so on. And the kind of drugs where they're manufac-tured, obviously the supply routes into countries are really different based on
their geography, which seems obvious, but that's clearly true too in the chemical and biological warfare and the pharmaceutical space.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, 100%, you know, and so, And so, we see that across the globe, obvi-ously, as you just mentioned, and we also kind of see the exploitation of countries who may turn a blind eye to that, use as a transit port. And so our responsibility there is to try and work with those countries to say, hey, it's shipping through your country. We know it's not technically en-tering your border, but you're being used as a transshipment point. Can we work together? And again, this is where that relationship between regulatory agencies, law enforcement and pri-vate companies always can be better, but needs to be kind of built upon and kept up so that we do get that cooperation. We do get that impact that we're looking for.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Let's go to a segment about alliances. You've briefly touched it there, but what roles do technology and forensics play in broader diplomacy and security?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: So in Australia, you know, we have some of the best digital forensics hap-pening in the world, at least, you know, during my time. I know I've been five years out of the po-lice now, but at that time, we were doing some really groundbreaking stuff. And because of that, you know, we did some really cool operations with the likes of, of the FBI, Homeland Security, and those kinds of support when you can actually show on that level, that you've got something to help a country like the US, that's pretty powerful at levels above that, you know, we did a similar thing in the illicit drug space with what we were doing here in terms of drug profiling. You spoke before about transshipment points and how we're studying that. You know, we were doing that through chemistry. We were able to track back to some parts of Asia. And we actually got government support at the time. It was $1 .2 million to build a laboratory in Asia to act as a cen-ter of excellence using our techniques, sharing data with us, which were techniques that are harmonized with the US. And
now, you know, we've kind of created this triangle of data sharing across the world because of the skills that we developed in forensic science, whether that be digital forensics, like I men-tioned before, or in our lesser drug space, which, again, we're pretty advanced in Australia for both our size and scale of the issue we have.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Let's go to some of, you know, some of your work in forensics. So ob-viously, you know, you are initially trained as a chemist, but your work in forensics,
particularly later on, was across a much broader field of forensics. So I want to ask a few ques-tions. So as you kind of mentioned there in Australia, forensics have often been at the forefront of using new technologies and you talked about digital forensics, but in every form of forensics generally. At the end of your time in the AFP, you actually led forensic capabilities in Eastern Command, which is New South Wales. What are some of the technology highlights for you? What are some of the things you look back on and you think we're really innovative at the time?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, cool. So our whole kind of like advanced search capability back then, you know, I think was second to none. So the AFP had employed a whole bunch of tools and a whole bunch of specialists to searching. We were lucky enough to have one or two members deployed in Eastern Command, so New South Wales, but then also we had, you know, obviously as the AFP does causing causing people from around the country when it's needed. So that was really cool. And we're talking things like, you know, back then drones were a big deal. Obviously now they're not, but
they were. And AFP was at the forefront of using kind of some of that technology, ground pene-trating radar was pretty cool. You know, then we go into the work that I mentioned, you know, with the that, that app, right? Like the, the creation of that and the management of that app that was Anom was just cool, right? Like that was like cool tech being used for the right reasons by government
agencies across the world. And when you have the relevant authority, With the relevant author-ity, and when you have the opportunity to kind of see that in action, but also see the dedication that the people have, which is, you know, one of the things I miss most about the AFP.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: I want you to take my listeners through what you can tell from chem-istry and forensics profiling of at drugs. So when we go to the end of an operation and you seize drugs, you don't know what they are. Obviously, you've kind of already alluded to the fact that until you've tested, you don't know what that substance is. What are some of the really interest-ing things that people might not know that you can actually infer or prove based on the chemi-cal profile and things like packaging or what else?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, sure. So my whole kind of career has been as a translator, you know, and it's not obviously it's not translating language, but really translating science to English or, you know, the whole Intel piece, you know, Intel, so people can make decisions. But really, that translation from science to English, I think is what we did really well during my early uh at the AFP and the chemical profiling piece was was awesome right let's use cocaine for an example because it's an interesting one lots of people are interested in the product it's a naturally grown product in different areas let's say of South America right so because of the different environ-mental conditions that that plant is exposed to that comes through into the final product. And so what the chemical profiling techniques do is compare this final product back to known origin samples, which means people have gone into those separate regions, picked the leaves, the plant, and processed your cocaine. And we can compare back and say this brick of cocaine, you know, was made in this region, not only country but in this region of this country and there's even some word now that you can go down to a valley. That's how detailed the analysis is get-ting, right? So that's that's one bit of information that it kind of tells which is again cool science.
The other piece is that there are very traditional manufacturing techniques using very specific chemicals. So the chemical profiling looks at that and says, okay, we know that this particular method, for example, is Peruvian or Colombian, as it just as examples. But our other data is tell-ing us that this leaf is of, let's say the opposite origin, Colombian origin, Peruvian technique. What's happening there? So let's go back. Let's work with our partners overseas. Let's compare notes. Do we have a Peruvian operating in Colombia making cocaine? Do we have movement of products, you know, picked or picked plant then being shipped as raw material into a separate manufacturing facility. So we look at all that and we use the science and we use the chemistry to tell us that story. And we pass that on to the brilliant, You know, Intel teams and Intel analysts in those organizations to help put the story together, but we're definitely in that space, at least the first piece.
And then packaging, you know, packaging is very wide ranging from the use of logos and markings that kind of indicate specific tribes, you know, in certain countries. Two, and I'll switch drugs drugsy to something like ecstasy, you know, everyone wanted a blue Mitsubishi at one point 'cause they were really good and they had a good branding around them, right? So then people started making
blue Mitsubishi tablets. So, you know, originally that was linked to a certain group of manufac-turers, then it kind of expanded, but you can trace all that back through, yeah, imagery and, yeah, chemical profiling as well.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: I think it's so interesting. And I think, You know, for people that have-n't worked inside this field, actually understanding how much information is available from that is really helpful and then seeing how, you know, analytical teams can bring together, you know, that kind of the networks behind it and obviously the relationships between different nations are really important here in terms of getting that information. I'm really interested to see your work on the forensics strategy for foreign interference. Obviously, foreign interference is an ex-treme and growing threat in Australia. How do the two intersect and what was specific to for-eign interference in your forensics work?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, sure. So this came in, you know, towards my end at the end of my time with the AFP. So, like you said, I was OIC, officer in charge for our forensics in Eastern Command. And we had, you know, one of our first real big investigations into that. It was actual-ly the second last job that I ran in forensics before I left. And, you know, of course, very strongly sorry, digital forensics focused. So our strategy around there around that was obtaining devices being used and
protecting the integrity of the content on those devices. So working across the forensic disci-plines, one, getting the device, two, ensuring that we can link person to device, and then three, protecting the integrity of the information on that device, you know, from things like remote wip-ing.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: And then I spoke about the kind of advanced search capabilities, looking for them, you know, the other devices once we had secured some of the main ones that were either on the person or, or easily accessible in the location. So my piece there was really kind of the management. And I'm a technical person, but I'm not a technical person in digital forensic space by, by any means. Um, but so my kind of involvement there was really just processing and oversight management, ensuring that we could protect, you know, the integrity of, of the infor-mation on the advice, on the devices, um, and that we had the right tools and the right people in place, uh, to be able to, you know, in a very timely matter, I retrieved retrieves that information off for then the analysts and the investigators to have access to.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Forensics, as you said, is quite a broad term, but in the policing ap-plication of forensics, we have very specific disciplines which provide really specialist exper-tise.
Yeah, and let's talk about it in the context of Australian Commonwealth, for example.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Let's talk about the forensic of the AFP, you know, split between lab -based and field -based technologies or capabilities. So you've got your field -based capabilities, which are, for lack of a better term, more generalist, right? So your crime scenes go in to do ex-actly that, you know, assess and manage a crime scene and ensure that the evidence is col-lected. When we talk about evidence to hear we're talking about fingerprints, photographs, you know, anything that can give you your chain of events or potentially lead to a chain of events. You've got your digital forensics lab field team that are there also to collect devices, retrieve as much information as possible. But then you've got your lab based. So for the AFP, a lot of this oc-curs in Canberra. But we also, you know, of some of these capabilities spread around the coun-try as well. So they then had, like you're talking about, your very specific CBR and laboratories in Canberra, which the evidence that's
being collected from the crime scene, from the field, go and get assessed in those laboratories. You've got more advanced fingerprint capabilities, for example, in the laboratory, document analysis, Face ID, the list goes on biology, DNA is obviously a big piece as well. So the collection point happens from our crime scene teams, but the analysis happens from our lab based team. So it's this
big network of specialists working together, but in very different and distinct fields to get to an outcome.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Because obviously, when you talk about things like illicit drug, rou-tine policing functions, whereas when you move towards things like foreign interference or chemical and biological weapons, there's a lot of other intersections going on in terms of the security space, and we're talking about state actors, and so we're talking about quite a different security posture. You talked about remote wipe of devices there, and the capacities that com-ing up against state actors have, and the way that you have to think about, you know, the pro-tection and integrity of the actual the devices that you've seized in those environments is quite different.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, 100%. And that kind of probably last kind of word to add into that is implication, right? Because when you're working on a on a drug case, you know, it's one thing, but when you're working on potential foreign experience, the state actors, the implications of, of what you're doing or what you don't do, or what you get wrong, right? Because that always happens as well. You know, the things that you may miss or you may get wrong, the implications are a bit different.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: I want to go to a segment. What are some of the interdependencies and
vulnerabilities of science broadly and technology that you wish were better understood?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, I mean, I think I'll go back to just the digitization of everything. We've had some recent events in Australia as well. Let's talk about Optus. You can to pick a couple of examples there, but as we move to digitizing our operations even more, I think we expose our-selves to new attack surfaces, both from a digital perspective, but then from a physical per-spective as well. So I mentioned before about the discovery of compounds is no longer happen-ing with hours and hours spent in a laboratory doing experiments, the discovery of compounds is happening on a computer, you know, using a large language model or something like that, that's ingested a whole bunch of material, where people have worked on for the last 500 years. So I think that that is really huge. And I, well, I think we talk about it a lot. I'm not sure that we really understand it as much as we would like to.
A company like Pfizer, we are under attack constantly and we have these really, really special-ized and brilliant individuals that work protecting us as a company and protecting our individu-als from that kind of, I've moved a bit into cybersecurity here but from that kind of cybersecurity space
as as well, and the vulnerabilities there change for them every day.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: It's hard not to go into the cybersecurity space, right? As you were talking about supply chain integrity in your first response, and you were talking specifically about a user being able to scan a barcode on a product and know if it's authentic. I mean, as a society, we We are facing inauthenticity as an increasing volume of the proportion of infor-mation, but also products, right? Like you're talking about actual products, but we're talking about the same issue essentially on the information environment in our technology, in our me-dia, understanding and many of the challenges there are about watermarking or how and we ascertain authenticity in that space.
But it's across the board, right? And when you're talking about, you know, you raise the Optus issues in terms of relying on switching to systems which have fewer redundancies built in and are essentially just more digitally reliant. And that increases, as you say, that the cybersecurity surface attack area. I mean, when you said scanning a barcode, I actually thought that sounds like it would be amazing if you could do that for a piece of information, you know? Could I con-firm that? Could I confirm that this news report is actually real?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, 100%. And it's like, it's just, you know, the way that we've had to shift our operations. You know, 10 years ago, as a global security team in a pharmaceutical company, they would just work with law enforcement, go to knock -down doors and they were very, very successful and we still are, but we've had to switch the focus a little bit to those technological safeguards, you know, whether it's increasing the security of the packaging, making it harder to forge, improved distribution tracking, you know, so the distribution tracking that happened with the vaccine, for example, in my opinion, was groundbreaking. You know, we had a GPS device and a light sensor
in every single box of vaccine that got shipped around the world, which meant that
if somebody opened the box,
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: the COVID vaccine,
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: sorry, yeah, the COVID -19 vaccine. So that was developed in -house. And what that meant is that if somebody opened a box in a light room, let's say, because it was a light sensor, But if someone opened a box, before it got to where it was meant to be opened, our operation sensor knew about it.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Yeah, wow.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: And so we could tell if the cold chain was broken, we could tell if the box itself had been tampered with, even before you talk about touching the actual product itself. And we wouldn't have done that with some of our more lifestyle products, you know, 10 or 15 years ago because we probably didn't need to if we're being fair, you know, like they weren't re-ally breaking down supply chains.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: And it would have been very expensive!
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: That's right, that too.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: But this, like, I mean, you know, the commercial reality is you protect products that have the kind of globally changing impact that a COVID -19 vaccine had in 2020 and 2021 in 2022. I mean, they were periods of time which radically altered the way the world viewed, you know, pharmaceutical supply chains because there was just such a controversial challenging time. Interesting, then, that we can maybe think about learning from some of those experiences, particularly as we look forward.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: I want to go to a segment. It's called Emerging Tech for Emerging Leaders. What do you see as the biggest challenges for leaders?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, I think just about being fluent in, you know, in my world and my world as a leader, being fluent in data ethics, being fluid in the kind of algorithmic bias that comes from the increased use, you know, of different types of AI tools, and just staying, you know, cur-rent, which is really about continuous learning in this space, right? I don't think you have to have your head in the actual coding and the real detail of what's happening, but I do think you need to be savvy. Like I said, I do think you need to be fluent in some of those aspects of the tools that we're using because that's how decisions are being made. Right? Yeah. On both sides of the fence again, you know, so you just need to, you know, have that awareness and that apprecia-tion. And in my case, you know, surround yourself with some very great tech savvy people that assist you in that.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: I mean, that, as you said, that is one of the greatest, greatest joys of working operationally is getting teams together. And I think it never quite leaves you.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Another segment, it's called the Contest Spectrum. What's a new cooperation, competition, or conflict you see coming in the next 12 months?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: I think a big one is just protection of everyone's data. So whether that's health data, supply chain integrity data, extending to clinical trial data, like I mentioned a cou-ple of times, you know, as we, you know, as different tools shape our landscape, I think, you know, really with a challenge for us as a company and as a society and as regulators is really balancing our innovation that we, you know, we want to use these tools as well, obviously, and we want to stay ahead of the game. But we need to balance that innovation with security and ethical standards, right? We really need to be careful about how we're using tools, how we're using data and where we're using it. You know, for someone, you know, in my role, for example, thinking the different privacy rules that exist across the globe, right? Europe is very different to the US, very different to Asia. And so thinking about how we use the tools, the data, the servers where the data is stored on and where that server is, how that impacts what we do and what we produce going forward, I think is becoming more and more important and becoming something that, you know, we really need to be having a bigger conversation about at least on the company side of the house.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: As someone who is, you know, running a startup it's an absolute tru-ism. I mean, the balancing of the desire to push forward with innovative ideas and try different things, but also to deeply understand what are really complex challenges, you know, where we store data, what systems we use, how we protect those, how we go above and beyond in terms of data ethics, in terms of cybersecurity. I mean, they're very real tensions that every company has to face. I mean, and honestly, every government also has to face. I think it is a great reflec-tion, thanks.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: I was going to say that, you know, it really extends into our world as well from a counterfeit medicine space as well, right? Because geopolitical changes and risks can impact the demand and the drive to either sell, access, counterfeit or substandard medica-tions. Right? Because as we've seen recently, you know, geopolitical issues can also change pricing, structures in different parts of the world. And so from our perspective and my role spe-cifically, we're looking at what is the risk of that in the counterfeit space. So it has so many more aspects to it outside of, you know, national security, which I know is the kind of focus, but it leads into other aspects as well, right down to, you know, a patient who is looking for the right medication and our goal is, you know, obviously to deliver that safely.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Yeah. So it's amazing to think that, you know, domestic political statements might be changing the global context for counterfeit pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, and not something I would have ever, ever considered, you know, in the space of my time as in law enforcement, forensic science, you know, even at uni, when we studied parts of pharmaceuticals because that was part of a chemistry degree, Never in a mil-lion years would you think of these as issues or as flow and effects in the political kind of frame-work.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: A segment called Eyes and Ears. What have you been reading, listen-ing to or watching lately that might be of interest to my audience?
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah, so I subscribed to an email list called Gen AI Insights. It's very US centric, but it's a really cool kind of daily dose of some articles specific to kind of GenAI. Obvi-ously that's a big piece for us and for me particularly at the moment. It really breaks down like the
essential and not essential articles of the day. I love it because it's already summarized for me. I'm part way through an internal leadership course which is through Harvard Business School. And so there's a lot of that kind of Harvard business review articles that I'm really leaning into. And some of them just provide a really interesting perspective, you know, whether it's on lead-ership, whether it's
on the use of data. And, you know, I mentioned data privacy before, there's been a couple of re-ally good recent articles about that. So yeah, HBR.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: segment is called Disconnect. How do you wind down an unplug? I don't only have parents on the show, but you are the parent of a small person, a new parent. And so I know you don't get a lot of to read that you're you're in the wilderness in terms of reading.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: Yeah. Yeah, so my I mean my disconnect is is really get me away from a screen, you know, in my role, I don't have a lot of face to face interaction. It's all virtual. So I have a non -negotiable, you know, morning gym class that is, you know, probably 75 % social more than actually working out but that's my kind of real disconnect and sometimes not my start to the day but you know after a couple of early morning meetings and then yeah seven month old daughter and two dogs that I spend time with you know as much as I can to kind of get away from like I said get me away from away from a screen or from these headphones.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Absolutely so my last segment is need to know is there anything I didn't ask which would have been great to cover.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: I think the biggest one is just there is someone in your life that's a patient right or someone in your life that is taking a medicine. One percent of medicines in the devel-oped world are counterfeit. We've got a really good public facing website that talks through you know all of the the stats and talks about how you can detect counterfeit medicines, how you can report it. So I think that's That's a big one for me is just to talk about the issue 'cause it was definitely a really eye
-opening aspect to coming into this role.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Adrian, thanks so much for joining me today.
Dr. Adrian De Grazia: No worries, thanks for having me.
Dr Miah Hammond-Errey: Thanks for listening to Technology and Security. I've been your host, Dr. Miah Hammond-Errey. This podcast is brought to you by Strat Futures. If there was a mo-ment you enjoyed today or a question you have about the show, send an email to the address in the show notes. Please write, review and subscribe to help promote technology and security.