Biotechnology analyst Dr Kennen MacKay (PhD ’12, S Clarke) has been appearing weekly on CNBC’s business news show to discuss the spread of COVID-19.
In his role as Biotechnology Equity Research Analyst with RBC Capital Markets, MacKay normally uses his modeling skills to analyze biotechnology stocks for drug development and commercialization; he is now using them to analyze epidemiology and the corona virus. Since March 19, MacKay has been appearing weekly on CNBC’s Business Day show to discuss the best and worst case projection scenarios of COVID-19 in the U.S. with senior health and science reporter Meg Tirrell.
View his CNBC interviews here March 19, March 26, April 1, April 8.
MacKay received his bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Colorado College in 2005. In 2012, he received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology working with Professor Steven Clarke. MacKay has been a member of the UCLA’s College of Physical Sciences Board of Advisors since 2019. He has been a guest speaker at the UCLA Anderson Business School talking on valuing and evaluating Biotechnologies (Professor Marvin Lieberman’s Entrepreneurial Perspectives on Biotechnology course) and he gave a Graduate Biochemistry Student Association (gBSA) alumni career talk in July 2019.
In July 2019 MacKay returned to UCLA to give a gBSA alumni career talk – (far left) Dean of Physical Sciences Miguel García-Garibay, gBSA members, and (far right) MacKay’s former Ph.D. advisor Professor Steven Clarke.
MacKay is Managing Director and Co-Head of RBC Capital Markets’ Biotechnology Equity Research team. His interests span all things biotech – he covers a range of biotechnology companies across a range of therapeutic indications & modalities: from small molecule precision medicines to antibody/protein products, to gene therapies, gene editing, & cellular therapeutics. He previously covered the biotechnology sector at Credit Suisse and Citigroup, and held biotechnology roles in non-profit and laboratory research settings prior to his career on Wall Street.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penny@chem.ucla.edu.
