Pharma Technology Investment Trends - Head of Drug Discovery and Development, Small Biopharma

The head of drug discovery and development at a small, emerging biopharma company speaks about how their company invests in various technologies. Namely, they see the greatest spend in bioinformatics and research tools, specifically genomics. They see genomics and proteomics having the greatest ROI currently, as those are the main avenues driving success in drug development today. However, as they expand, they expect to see greater future spending not just in these areas, but also in lab automation, bioinformatics, and clinical trial operations. The main pain points that they have dealt with include data fragmentation and understanding data utility, especially in a landscape where data regulations are continuously evolving. To make investment decisions, their company looks to reduce development timelines, increase discovery productivity, and diversify their pipeline. They see the shift of I/O and / or targeted therapies to earlier stages of treatment, emerging therapy modalities, and the FDA Modernization Act as key market levers that will impact future investments.

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