Deborah Waterhouse: ‘The HIV stigma remains, and this is a battle we’ve got to fight’
A lot has changed since the devastating 1980s Aids crisis depicted in the Channel 4 TV show It’s a Sin – but the stigma attached to the illness remains, says Deborah Waterhouse. As chief executive of ViiV Healthcare, a GlaxoSmithKline-controlled joint venture that develops HIV drugs, she leads one of the largest commercial developers of Aids treatments in the world.
“I remember in 1987 GSK brought the first medicine out for HIV and at that point the life expectancy for someone living with HIV was 18 months,” she tells the Observer, speaking via video link from her study lined with novels, travel and music books in her home in Richmond, west London.
“Today if you become HIV-positive, your life expectancy is the same as for somebody not living with HIV. While science has created amazing treatments, stigma has not evolved, and this is a battle we’ve got to fight. It’s a highly stigmatised disease. We know that health systems don’t always treat people living with HIV in the way they should.”
Waterhouse has led ViiV, one of GSK’s most successful businesses, for almost five years. It made £4.9bn sales in 2020 but only employs 1,400 people, compared with GSK’s 94,000. This week GSK will unveil its 2021 results,
Age 54
Family Married with two children.
Education Hamstead Hall comprehensive school, Birmingham; English literature and economic history at Liverpool University.
Last holiday Somerset
Best advice she’s been given “Having a global perspective is incredibly valuable, so live and work in as many places around the world as possible.”
Biggest career mistake “Not realising for many years that there is no way to juggle career, being a mum, daughter, friend and a wife perfectly. Banish guilt and ask yourself: did I do the best I
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