In the latest 'Meet the maker' EPM chats to Bernard Fermini, chief research & development officer at global stem cell biotechnology company, Novoheart. Bernard talks his love of science, the revolutionary potential of stem cells and why he's a stickler for validation data.
Bernard Fermini - Chief research & development officer, Novoheart
Could you give us a brief description of yourself and if possible what you do at Novoheart?
I’ve been working in the field of cardiac electrophysiology and pharmacology for the past 30 years, with over 20 of these spent in the pharmaceutical industry focussing on the cardiac safety of drugs. As chief research and development officer, my role is to oversee the optimisation and the development of the next generation of assays for assessing cardiac toxicity, while keeping Novoheart at the leading edge with the establishment of drug discovery programs.
Please describe your average day in five words.
Science, team interactions, solving issues, scholarship
At what point did you decide to be involved in the pharma market?
When I started my career at the Montreal Heart Institute, antiarrhythmic drugs had failed, yet again, in a large clinical trial. As a cardiac electrophysiologist I believed it was possible to develop safer antiarrhythmic drugs if only you could understand the underlying ionic mechanisms responsible for the adverse events. As this this could only be accomplished in the pharmaceutical industry, I took advantage of an opportunity to move to the “dark side” according to many of my academic colleagues.
What has been your biggest achievement?
While at the Montreal Heart Institute, this passion to understand the failure of antiarrhythmic drugs eventually lead my lab to the discovery and characterisation of a novel, atrial selective, ion channel in the human heart named IKur or Kv1.5. During my career, I’ve been fortunate to have worked with some incredible people, and to have been involved in fascinating projects, but this discovery remains my biggest achievement.
What would you say is your worst trait?
In my view, you need to let the data do the talking. Therefore, I’m a real stickler for validation data – maybe a bit too much…I guess that’s what working with great scientist during your career will do to you…
What do you love about your job?
Pretty much everything. The challenges of making sure the science is top-notch, working with some of the best minds in the industry, learning something new every day, having the opportunity to shape the career of younger colleagues, contributing to the growth of a new company, making a difference. What else can you ask for…
If anything, what would you change about your job?
I’m from the old school when your office was next to the lab, and all you had to do was walk 10 feet to ask a colleague a question. Novoheart, as with many new biotech companies, has components scattered all around the globe. This makes communication a bit more challenging, although still quite manageable in this era of convenient video conferences. But if there’s one thing I could change, it would be to have all of Novoheart’s colleagues in a single location, or at least have the opportunity to all get together more often.
If you weren’t in the pharma industry what job would you like to do?
During my career in large pharma, I’ve been exposed to patients who have seen their lives transformed by some of the medication I was fortunate to have worked on. I’ve also been exposed to the world of rare diseases. So, with the mind of a seasoned scientist, I think I would become an advocate for the development of new treatments for rare diseases. I’ve been blessed with healthy children, but there’s a lot of suffering out there, and I’d want to be out pushing for change.
What challenges do you foresee being important over the next 10 years?
There is no doubt that the continued pressure on healthcare spending affects the revenues of large pharma, which in turn affects the budgets dedicated for research and development. This trickles down to smaller budgets for innovative work with Biotech companies. The pharma industry is continuously churning as it adapts to a continuously changing environment. Unfortunately, I don’t see the situation improving much over the next 10 years.
In your opinion, what will offer the biggest opportunities in the future?
Stem cells are poised to revolutionise medicine. Although still in its infancy, and while facing important challenges, the science surrounding stem cells is evolving at a rapid pace, leading to opportunities that were not even imaginable even a decade ago. Whether the ability to test drugs or a combination of drugs on a patient’s own grown cells or organs before going into a clinical trial, or testing new drugs for adverse effects on representative ethnic populations, or allowing to replace damaged tissues/organs with a regenerative approach, stem cells have the potential to turn healthcare on its head. However, to get there we’ll need to let the data talk. And generating this data can’t be done in a vacuum but will require partnership with large pharma. Yet, with its decreasing R&D budgets, frequent headcount reductions, and a strategy aimed largely at purchasing drugs in late stage development, the challenges of working with pharma are many going forward. But I’m optimistic that we’ll get there eventually, and I really feel blessed to have the opportunity to contribute to this new and exciting field.