22 entrepreneurs
When East met West – how the road to recovery drove global success
First-hand experience of the benefits of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) transformed Robert Miller’s life and set him on a new career path. Today, he is chief executive officer of Phynova, a multi-million pound life science company which has just beaten some of the biggest names in the pharma world to be the first European drug manufacturer to bring TCM to the UK high street. Headquarted in Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire, and with a research centre in Beijing, China, the company focuses on developing proprietary natural healthcare products from the compounds found in plants and foods. Having spent the past 30 years working in the industry, Miller says it has been a 'long journey', but he is as passionate now about changing the perception of Chinese medicine as he’s ever been. Alison Dewar found out more
Raised in Palo Alto, California, Robert Miller’s lifestyle underwent a dramatic change aged 13, when his father’s career brought the family to London. Studying at the American School, he returned to his homeland to attend university in Boston but dropped out because he found it “boring”. A spell on newspapers was followed by a move into event management, with a focus on the burgeoning alternative energy sector. It was when he became ill and was introduced to the benefits of TCM that he had his “wow” moment and realised there were huge opportunities to develop the medicines for the Western world. Phynova was launched in 2002 and now successfully bridges the innovation gap between the East’s traditional medicines and the Western need for science-based evidence and regulation. In 2013, the company was awarded a prestigious Innovate UK grant and later that year Miller was a member of the British business delegation that accompanied prime minister David Cameron on his first trade mission to China. Miller is married and lives near Chipping Norton with his wife and children.
entrepreneurial venture was event management, I had to do everything – from sales, PR, logistics, production – that was needed to make the events successful. It was also then that I became quite ill with chronic bronchitis.
How did that change your life?
Moving to London must have been a culture shock
When I was growing up, Palo Alto was idyllic, it wasn’t the hothouse financial and technology centre it is today. To go from skateboarding on Sand Hill Road to taking the Underground was quite some change. I was very independent though, being a young foreigner in a foreign country was a real eye opener and it made me very internationally orientated. My father’s job meant plenty of visitors came through our home from different parts of the world. It made me appreciate that the world was a lot bigger and more interesting than my very nice life in Palo Alto.
What was your first job?
University hadn’t inspired me. I wanted to get out and experience things in the real world – I think entrepreneurs tend to be like that. My first
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I was unwell for over a year and it was extremely debilitating. I was living outside Boston and I had a very good doctor who tested me for absolutely everything, treated me with various drugs that had no effect, and eventually he didn’t know what else to do. A Chinese friend of mine suggested I went to a Chinese doctor called Mr Ho in Boston’s Chinatown – I think when you’re so ill you get quite desperate and I thought I had nothing to lose, so I went. He asked me all sorts of questions, and in most cases, the questions were spot on. My first reaction was that he was more like a fortune teller, which was a bit scary. He gave me a prescription for the local Chinese herbal pharmacy in Boston’s Chinatown and I came away with what looked like a bag of twigs, which tasted pretty appalling when you boiled them up. After a difficult first week of taking the decoctions there was a marked improvement in my condition. I went back to Mr Ho and came away with a modified prescription and by the end of the second week I was a lot better, almost completely normal. He told me the illness had been the result of what in western medicine might be described as congenital weakness in my constitution. He gave me a new prescription made into honey pills – herbs ground into a powder and mixed with honey – which he said would help strengthen me after my long illness. The pills had to be sent from Hong Kong and, after taking them every day for two months, I felt fantastic.
That was my wow moment – having had the best treatment available from a highly-qualified doctor in Boston, conventional medicine wasn’t able to help get over my illness in the way that my TCM doctor had done. It had changed my life and I thought that if Chinese medicine had been able to help me with my intractable illness then it must be able to do that for other people as well, and I saw it as a great opportunity.
What was your first step?
I originally started a business with a friend who was a PhD chemist, making plant derived extracts
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – SEPTEMBER 2015
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