Pharma Technology Investment Trends - Executive Director in Translational Medicine, Midsize Biopharma

An executive director of translational medicine at a midsized pharma company speaks to how investments at their company are prioritized, and how they may change in the next 3 – 5 years. They hold responsibilities both in non-clinical and early clinical study or trial settings, with budget authority in non-clinical and clinical translational medicine settings. Proteomics and imaging are large investments, which they expect to continue to persist through the near future, though company growth will lead to increases in investment for other areas (e.g., laboratory automation, clinical trial operations) as well. They see the most return in research tools, as proteomics and imaging are key to their activities, but they also see value in in vitro modeling as well, with the caveat that this is mainly focused on cell lines, as more novel models such as spheroids and organoids have yet to show a true return. While this expert has found significant return in some research tools, they feel that liquid biopsy has not panned out quite as expected, and that the data offered by AI is still too fragmented to show strong returns. Before their company had scaled up, they had issues with CRO partnerships, in which they felt that some CROs did not align well with their project’s needs. Broadly, they expect to be most impacted by novel research tools, emerging therapeutic modalities, and the trend towards early cancer detection.

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