Life wisdom from top drug inventor: “Do not work all the time. Have a life!”
“When I was 50, I had emergency coronary artery bypass operation because I had stress all the time. I worked very hard. Not really 40; but 60, 70 hours a week. But after that, I don’t stress as much as before, and I also like to travel” – Swedish drug inventor, whose drug Curosurf saved 4 million premature babies:
You have dedicated your life to saving the lives of prematurely, tiny born babies. How does it feel to still drive the research? What drives you at this point? You have already succeeded, but yet you work very hard and continue to work very hard. Yes, I am old enough to be retired since a couple of years, but I would like to see this synthetic surfactant. I think it’s a challenge to have a synthetic surfactant on the market, to be able to treat not only premature babies, but also other people that need surfactant. Not perhaps active surfactant, perhaps an inactive surfactant for different reasons. So I would like to see this synthetic surfactant to happen. – Thank you very much. Is there anything else you would like to add or anything else you’d like to tell our viewers? – This is very difficult to say. Research, I think it’s, it’s very, I like this research, and to help different people, but it’s also very important that you shall not perhaps work all the time. And what I would like to say, that you must also do things other than just doing research because I think, I can tell you, when I was a little more than 50 years, I had emergency coronary artery bypass operation because I had stress all the time. I worked very hard. Not really 40; but 60, 70 hours a week. But after that, I also say, I would like to work, I would like to work this research. But today, I don’t stress as much as before, and I also like to travel. And I like to travel to different countries. I think I’ve been to about 100 countries or something like that, and we travel probably many times a year. And I think that is very fortunate, the life you live and also the work – The work and life balance, so hard – Balance, balance. – So hard to find in modern life. Well, Dr. Curstedt, thank you very much for this fascinating conversation. You have saved lives, hundreds of thousands of babies, premature born babies, and improved the quality of lives of probably millions of babies around the world, and it’s truly an honor to meet you and to hear your story. Thank you very much. – Thank you very much.
