What is your current role in the company you work at?
I am the lead for Scientific Strategy and External Collaboration for a pharma discovery unit at Sanofi.
What are the most prominent challenges you see in neurodegeneration research?
1) Accurate diagnosis of patients with biomarkers rather than solely clinical diagnosis.
2) Diagnosing patients as early as possible, since by the time of symptom occurrence severe brain damage has already occurred.
3) Objective and sensitive scales of disease progression, including functional parameters (for use in a one year or less follow-up period).
What are your expectations from the Neuronet Coordination and Support Action?
I expect Neuronet to help coordinate the diverse research efforts in the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) neurodegeneration research framework. I think it is vital to try to identify synergies between past and current IMI projects.
We need to share the positive findings across projects and try to help limit the redundancy of efforts in finding solutions. At the same time, we need to identify what does not work and what else could be needed. We also need to let European citizens know that the European Commission and IMI are dedicating efforts and resources to improve health and medicine for the people living in Europe.
What value do you see in public-private collaboration?
Public-Private collaboration enables us to share the common needs and difficulties to develop new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and helps us to try to identify solutions with academic and clinical colleagues.