Martine Rothblatt, PhD, MBA, JD, is
an attorney, medical ethicist and biotech executive, and also a member of
the Chancellors Court of Benefactors, Oxford University. She is the author
of a number of books including ‘Your Life and Mine’, which deals with xenotransplantation
and the moral dilemmas. Dr Rothblatt has been principally responsible for
two global agreements as well as for the International Bar Association’s
Human Genome Treaty draft now before the United Nations. She is also the
founder and chief executive of United Therapeutics, a US-based firm with
an approved medicine for pulmonary hypertension, a frequent cause of lung
or heart-lung transplantation. Her company also operates a nationwide
telemedicine network for patients with cardiac arrhythmias and provides the
cardiac monitors used on the International Space Station.
In the 1980s and early 1990s Dr Rothblatt led the companies that launched
the first satellite communications systems for vehicle positioning, international
broadcasting and digital music to cars. She is keenly interested in
using global telecommunications technology to cost-effectively and bioethically
advance healthcare worldwide.