Interview – Thomas Wilckens, InnVentis – Life Science R&D Big Data Leaders Forum 2014
By NextLevel Life Sciences - September 24, 2014

Leading up to NextLevel Pharma’s 2nd Annual Life Science R&D Big Data Leaders Forum, we are conducting email interviews with selected members of our prestigious speaker panel to learn more about their thoughts on this vital issue.

*Opinions below are those only of the individual and do not reflect upon corporate strategy or positioning.

For more information regarding NextLevel Pharma’s 2nd Annual Life Science R&D Big Data Leaders Forum click here.

Thomas Wilckens, CEO & CSO, InnVentis

NextLevel: What do you think makes the current Big Data challenge in R&D so daunting for pharma and medical device developers?  

Thomas Wilckens: I would like to quote Crai Venter: "One of the biggest challenges in medicine and science today is how to interpret the vast amount of biological data we are generating... To make these data interpretable and clinically actionable will require new computational tools.”
In addition, there is a complete lack of standards starting even from sample collection to data integration, which makes comparison of data often impossible, while redundancy continues to exhaust R&D budgets in academia and industry.

NextLevel: Which trends have you seen on the ways in which data management and analytics are being implemented to ease the Big Data challenge?

TW: There are many tools emerging from financial analysis over the NSA, DARPA to academia, but the adoption to biomedical R&D is not trivial, requiring converging domain competence, but this is doable.

NextLevel: How important do you think the big data management and analytics space is right now to enhance R&D efficiencies and break new ground?

TW: It is vital and the only way to overcome the stalling productivity in biopharmaceutical R&D.

NextLevel: What’s the best thing for you about working in the Life Sciences R&D and Data Management functions right now?  

TW: The convergence of IT/Big DATA enables a radical paradigm shift towards PRECISION MEDICINE, where we will soon have molecular map of health/disease enabling completely new approaches for intervention. In less than 20 years we will see a new way we talk about medicine.

NextLevel: Why is this Life Science R&D Big Data Leaders Forum event a good idea for people to attend in your eyes?

TW: The crowd of senior experts from diverse domains is somewhat exceptional and enables unique exchange and networking.

For more information regarding NextLevel Pharma’s 2nd Annual Life Science R&D Big Data Leaders Forum click here.