
From driving cars to driving sustainable change
Leaving a âdream jobâ as an automotive design and test engineer in 2005, to complete his MBA at IMD, was the start of a journey in a completely different direction for mechanical...
by Thierry Fumeaux, Thierry Fumeaux Published 25 August 2021 in Career path ⢠5 min read
When Thierry Fumeaux turned 55, he carried out his resolve â made ten years earlier â to reroute his career as a specialist in internal medicine and intensive care medicine.
Having observed colleagues in the twilight of their careers, he had anticipated he might need fresh challenges when he hit the same age, but he was keen to keep contributing to patientsâ health. After parking his interest in running for a hospital CEO position, because it lacked the creative license he craved, he landed two part-time jobs at biotech start-ups. He recognizes that juggling two gigs is âa challenging situationâ, given that part-time is, well, rarely that.
âMy main challenge is to use my 20-something yearsâ experience as a hospital physician who has done an Executive MBA positively in the companies.â
And that translates into keeping the patient at the center of all efforts, he explains. âMany medical start-ups think they have a fantastic solution, but havenât sufficiently defined the problem they want to solve. They have the key, but donât know which door to open for the patient.â
Fumeaux says this is not the case for the companies he is working for, which have a well-defined, patient-targeted strategy. He wants to crack this for these start-ups during one of the most fulfilling phases in his professional life, and doing so âin an economically sustainable way so that all stakeholders are happy.â No small feat.
âYou have to balance this interest in patient health with having a competitive edge. You might have an excellent drug for a disease, but if the market is overcrowded or if the drug isnât different enough from the others, you can kiss goodbye to it.â
As Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at clinical-stage, pharmaceutical firm Kinarus AG, Fumeaux coordinates clinical trials for a drug that, notably, holds hope in the treatment of COVID-19, among other disease targets. A key element of this is about helping the patient and keeping her safe with a simple oral therapy.
There are many ways, he says, that drugs can be useful for treating COVID. Either you try to avoid the virus entering the body, or you try to kill the virus once itâs in the system, or you decrease the bodyâs reaction to it. You donât want to do the latter too much, as the patient also needs to defend himself, but you have to strike a balance so as to avoid side effects.
At Kinarus, we have a drug that combines several of these mechanisms. And thatâs the newness of itThierry Fumeaux
But COVID isnât the only thing pharma is fighting: âOnce you have a drug that can moderate inflammation in the body, thereâs a long list of what you can do with it â including treating multiple diseases.â
His second role is as CMO of Acthera Therapeutics, which is making headway in turning nanoparticles into the vehicle of choice to deliver drugs in a targeted way to patients. His hands-on hospital work has given him the emotional impetus to pursue this goal.
âIn oncology, older patients sometimes cannot have treatment at all because of the adverse systemic effects of the dose required.â Nanoparticles can change this.
âWhen you administer a drug to fight a tumor in a patient, for instance, only a small amount of the drug goes to the tumor and the rest goes to other parts of the body, potentially causing ill effects.â
Nanotechnology has the ability to widen the therapeutic window, the space where you have enough of a positive effect and an insignificant negative one.
The potential of nanotechnologies is huge, and across many therapeutic fields. âAs an example, they protect the messenger RNA, which if just injected into blood is destroyed immediately. Itâs not new â itâs the technology behind the Moderna COVID vaccine â but we are working to enhance and improve it. The nano-particle is the vehicle, and the drug is the passenger â think of it like that.”
In between drawing a line under his career as a physician and becoming CMO of two start-ups with very different agendas, Fumeaux completed an EMBA, to give him a new managerial skillset to complement his formal medical training.
His two CMO roles require a lot of strategy skills and he has had to learn how to win the game of strategizing in the pharma industry. âYou can have a fantastic strategy, but if you havenât defined your target market well, or if people donât think your product is interesting, or investors donât find it attractive enough, then you remain alone with your âbest solution in the worldâ,â he says.
Since completing his EMBA, Fumeaux feels like heâs in a âhuge practical exerciseâ, lapping up the energy he receives from working in two start-ups.
âIâve been quite adaptive all my life. Feeling trapped is no good for me. I like to be in a moving field. Yes, I have lost the safety net, but I have the support of my family and I am now very much experiencing working for fun.â
If he has the opportunity in the future to start a business, that might be the next challenge. For now he is quite content working in âcoherent and cohesiveâ teams of five to seven people. âAnd although I am not a founder, I certainly feel like one,â Fumeaux says.
Chief Medical Officer (CMO)Â at Kinarus AG anf at Acthera Therapeutics
Having left his position as a hospital physician, Thierry Fumeaux is now involved in the strategic development of pharma startups. He continues to pursue his goal of helping patients, now contributing to bringing efficient treatments with a competitive advantage to the drug market.
Chief Medical Officer (CMO)Â at Kinarus AG anf at Acthera Therapeutics
Having left his position as a hospital physician, Thierry Fumeaux is now involved in the strategic development of pharma startups. He continues to pursue his goal of helping patients, now contributing to bringing efficient treatments with a competitive advantage to the drug market.
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