Principal scientist, medical devices

What does a principal scientist at LifeScan Scotland do?

LifeScan Scotland makes medical devices for people living with diabetes, including diabetes test strips and the glucose meters that these strips go into. The Inverness factory works round the clock, producing diabetes test strips 24/7 that go around the world to help diabetics monitor their blood glucose levels and manage diabetes. My team is the product and material team – we are a team of scientists who are the product technical experts ensuring that the diabetes test strips the company manufactures and the materials used to make them are fit for purpose and perform correctly.

My role involves understanding the technical complexities of projects and the risks and associated assessment and qualification activities required to implement solutions and product changes. I work with diverse cross-functional teams throughout a project lifecycle such a Quality, Regulatory and Planning as well as external bodies and global suppliers of material. I manage a team of scientists who perform a range of activities from production and material interaction assessments to internal and external lab-based testing to understand performance impact on our products.

How is your job making the difference?

Knowing that you’re helping people worldwide is what makes a difference to me. Every single day, we’re making products and working on innovations that will help people manage their diabetes and go about their lives. Sometimes, materials may need to change for different reasons like supply challenges, cost improvements, sustainability improvements or regulatory changes. If something drives us to use different materials, we need to assess those materials and ensure they’re fit for purpose in our products before they are manufactured on site and delivered to our customers. Ensuring that any changes that we make have been thoroughly assessed and will not have a negative impact on how our customers use our products is what drives me to perform my role.

What is your typical day like?

My days are always varied. As we have a 24/7 factory dealing with lots of global suppliers, regulatory changes and customers, there could be day-to-day escalations and problems that need my input. There’s also a lot of technical management, people development and short-term problem solving in my role, plus research into areas such as innovation and sustainability to see what the business could be doing differently going forward. In addition, there are longer-term projects that I’m responsible for delivering on behalf of my team.

Who or what inspired you to work in chemical science?

I’ve always enjoyed science – learning maths and chemistry especially. I never knew what I wanted to do, even when I was at university, so I thought doing things that I enjoyed was the best approach, along with studying subjects that I knew would open a wide variety of opportunities.

How did you get into your current role?

I applied for a graduate programme with LifeScan Scotland (owned by Johnson and Johnson at the time). This graduate scheme involved graduate rotations around lots of different areas of the business so not knowing exactly what role I wanted to do was fine because I got to experience lots of different areas. I completed the graduate scheme with a clear understanding of what role I wanted to do as a career. This role was as a Research & Development scientist and, as I gained knowledge and experience, I then progressed through different levels and areas of my current business and into the role I currently hold within supply chain technical engineering.

What advice would you give to a young person thinking of studying chemistry or considering a career in your field?

Chemistry has a huge variety of job opportunities – there are many sectors you can get into if you’ve got a chemistry degree:

• don’t pigeonhole yourself into a speciality too early.
• consider a degree that has an industrial placement as part of the degree. It really helps you to apply knowledge from your degree.

From an employer point of view, when we’re looking at graduates, people that have got industrial experience it is a big plus – you really know that they’ve gone into industry and can handle that transition from university to industry and apply that knowledge.

What do you dream about doing further down the line?

My role is technical management, which is complex and fulfilling. I would say, at some point over the next few years, I would like to move more into business leadership, using my knowledge and experience to drive business decisions elsewhere, but I enjoy what I’m doing just now.

 Dave Morris MRSC, Principal Scientist at LifeScan Scotland

Published August 2025