Meet the maker: EPM talks to IDBS' Christian Marcazzo

In our latest 'Meet the maker', EPM speaks to the new vice president and general manager of software solutions company IDBS. Marcazzo tells us about his love for science and what he expects out of the pharma market in the next 10 years.

1: Could you briefly describe yourself?

I’m international and interdisciplinary. I love science and IT, and I really enjoy combining these domains to create, build and deliver new products to scientists.  Throughout my career I have been working towards enhancing the newest technologies that impact drug discovery and development.

2: Please describe your average day in five words.

Enabling the team to win.

3: At what point did you decide to be involved in the pharma market?

When I started my career in bioinformatics and it was clear that the pharma market was investing big in bioinformatics and the human genome project.  I was working at the cutting edge of genomics and bioinformatics, and pharma was where those developments were going to have their first impact on human health.

4: What has been your biggest achievement?

I am particularly proud of my work with TIBCO Spotfire. It demanded the adoption of a new strategy that’s fast to address the changing market for data visualisation and analytics from an “expert” domain of scientists, engineers and actuaries to a much broader market of marketing and finance analysts. Although Spotfire had established itself as the market leader among scientists and engineers, it wasn’t reaching the broader market of analysts as effectively as its competitors. Through a productive partnership with PerkinElmer we were able to serve our scientific customers, while successfully shifting our product and marketing focus towards the broader market.

5: What would you say is your worst trait?

Impatience.

6: What do you love about your job?

Collaborating with talented and passionate people on a daily basis.

7: If anything, what would you change about your job?

Maybe it’s because I’m so early into it, but I wouldn’t change anything at this point.

8: If you weren’t in the pharma industry what job would you like to do?

I would like to be an actor, but sadly lack the talent.

9: What challenges do you foresee being important over the next 10 years?

Over the next 10 years we’re going to see complexity increase in many dimensions. Bigger and more complex molecules, more biology, complex clinical trials, complex processes, complex commercial models and pricing/value negotiations.

Take biologics as an example.  These drugs have tremendous potential to address unmet medical needs and to provide highly targeted and personalised therapeutics.  But the size and complexity of producing them is causing pharmaceutical companies to develop new competencies in process development and scale-up.

They are personalised medicines, and are creating enormous pricing and market access challenges in achieving an ROI that justifies the high costs of R&D.

10: In your opinion, what will offer the biggest opportunities in the future?

I see big opportunities at all those points of increasing complexity – but the complexity of biology and our increasing ability to understand and manipulate biology will continue to present new opportunities in healthcare and biotechnology.