Pharma Technology Investment Trends - Head of Translational Research, Top 20 Pharma

The head of translational research at a major pharma company speaks about how their company invests in various companies today, how they think about ROI, and what trends will alter their investments in the future. As the lead in translational oncology, they had budget authority in research that relates to translational medicine, and they are a stakeholder for clinical investments that occur in the translational platform space. Their company invests heavily in research tools, with the greatest investments occurring in genomics, cellomics, and liquid biopsy. However, this expert thinks that areas with the greatest ROIs are not necessarily the ones that receive the greatest share of investment today. This expert notes that the greatest pain points to their work flows today relate to issues with understanding the real meaning / utility behind data. Their investment decisions today are mostly driven by initiatives to decrease development timelines, increase discovery productivity, and increase efficiencies / cut costs. Broader trends in oncology care that may impact their spending relate to MRD and monitoring technologies and the shift towards earlier cancer treatments. While they think of AI as being a “riskier” area for investment, they also believe that it will impact the oncology space too.

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