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Career profile: Erminia Rubino, Head of Industrial Partnerships, Institut Imagine
In this blog post, Erminia Rubino shares how she made the transition from a PhD in life sciences to a career in innovation and technology transfer. She finds satisfaction in this career from prospecting and accompanying industrial partnerships that help translate basic research from academia into potential cures. In addition to discussing how networking helped her decide for this exciting career area, she talks about some of the key skills for the role, including communication, versatility and business acumen.
After a PhD at the Institut Pasteur, you’ve established a career in the innovation and technology transfer ecosystem. Could you first tell us a little about how you made the initial transition from academia to tech transfer?
It’s important to highlight that there are two different transitions to be made. The first and most obvious one is the transition from one job to another one and really select the position that fits better with what you want to do, your skills, and the skills you want to develop in the future. The less evident one, which is actually the most challenging, is the transition within yourself: to move on from what you were good at doing to what you could be even better at doing, but you do not know that yet. The research environment sees as a final goal of a PhD student to be a group leader or a successful scientist. However, even if you are a successful PhD student and you love research, you may want to do something else. In this context, it is a personal work to open up your mind to something else.
I prepared my transition by speaking with people who have a PhD and are working in the field of science but not as a scientist. I had the opportunity to participate to different workshops and even organizing them at Institut Pasteur, where I did my PhD. This helped to figure out what these people were doing in their job and imagine myself in this job. This has been crucial for me. I think having a mentor or identifying a group of people who have experience in this transition is essential. I had the chance to work with a mentor and he really helped me to figure out why I wanted this transition and what I expected from it. The “trigger” for me arrived during my second year of PhD. I was doing more fundamental science and I realized that I was a bit frustrated not to see the impact of my job straight away. We know fundamental science has a huge impact, but at a really long term. I needed something more concrete to work on – a job that is more oriented towards short-term goals and more applied. In jobs like technology transfer, we really work on something concrete: the transfer of innovations born in laboratories and in clinical services directly to the patients. The goal to reach the patients with innovations coming from academia was really driving me and I was curious about it.
By doing this switch inside myself and by speaking with the people doing these jobs, I got inspired. And I think being inspired is the first step: if you are inspired by a job, you will do all the possible things to reach that goal. Therefore, I actually started doing something concrete – taking courses to complete my formation. I took some courses on development of products in the field of health, creation of startups, valorisation of research, and many of them they are accessible online and some of them are free.
To resume, the key for this transition is to be prepared internally, but also look outside yourself, speak with people and find the right courses to complete your skills.
When making the transition, did you apply to an advertised position? How did that work for you?
I applied for many different positions in London and Paris related to technology transfer: mostly roles in business development, project management, consulting for transferring innovation from academia to industry, or roles in start-up studios dedicated to company creation. I got interviews by direct application, but the most successful applications were the ones where I had done some networking beforehand, where I actually knew the people who were working there. I knew the environment, what they were doing and what was behind it, so I could project myself better in these jobs. When I was doing interviews for these jobs, I was quite naturally prepared to answer questions like which are the missions of the institute, or like which are the mission of the company. It’s why having insiders it’s very useful.
My mentor also helped me to select these job opportunities based on what I wanted to do. And since he was someone from the field, he knew exactly what those institutes, those companies and those people were offering. Even though I didn’t have all the skills, I just applied. This was again a work on myself to dare more than usual.
I believe your first role after PhD was a of project management role in tech transfer at the Institut Curie. Could you tell us first about what you were doing in that role and then how your career has developed?
My first role at the Institut Curie was a short-term contract. I was following up projects with tech transfer potential that were funded by the institute or other funding entities. The funding aimed to move forward potential innovations and make them more attractive to industry, for example by developing a solid proof of concept and going from in vitro to in vivo stage. My role was to ensure the follow-up of those projects in terms of deliverables, timing and financial resources. I was in the role for few months but thanks to a great team I learnt a lot about the innovation world.
Afterwards, I moved directly to Institut Imagine. The one in Institut Imagine was my real first role in the field, in which I spent almost three years. Here, I was a business developer – the missions that I had were 1) sourcing: identifying new innovation with high technology transfer potential, 2) prospection: analysing the market, what is going on in the field and identifying the best industrial partner for a project or for a technology, 3) setting up the partnership: to set up the main terms, notably the program, the budget, the IP terms, and then 4) negotiation of the contract and 5) follow-up of the project. I was in a small team, where you do everything, from A to Z. This allowed me to really go very deeply in this role, to see many things, to accompany many projects, going from projects in their exploratory research stage to others in preclinical stage or clinical stage. This was exactly what I was hoping for in my transition. I was feeling useful in the short term. On one side I liked the fact that my job was goal-driven and, on the other side, I was getting satisfaction out of it, because the goal that I had – getting innovations to patients – was an exciting one.
So since that first role, you’ve also been promoted. So now you’re leading a small team looking after these activities. Clearly, you’ve been successful. What skills do you think were necessary for that?
There are many useful skills for this kind of positions, being usually transverse and multidisciplinary, but I think we can condense them to three main aspects resuming what it means working in a technology transfer office, and in particular, in an industrial partnerships team.
The first aspect is centered on human interactions. I think human interactions are key for this job. You have a bunch of competencies that you need to develop around that – for example, communication. We always work with people from different fields: lawyers, clinical research experts, the financial team and so on. You really need to be able to adapt to the different people you’re talking with. A partnership contract should be driven by the science behind it, but, for example, if the lawyers do not understand the key elements of this scientific program, they will not be able to adapt the contract to the specific partnership. Communication could be somehow an innate skill, but not only: for example, having a good and clear communication while negotiating a contract is not the same of communicating in a bar with a friend. I think there are things that you need to learn, eventually study to acquire them or at least to learn them while working. You also need to be a good listener. Especially in the first step of technology transfer, when you do the sourcing of the projects, you really need to listen to the scientists and to the clinicians to learn about their science. You need to be open minded because what is fundamental science today can be applied science tomorrow. It’s not just thinking business and money and transfer, but really thinking about science first, and then see how you can help the science to reach patients in the future. And last but not least, it is key in partnerships to have a gain-gain spirit. A partnership is like a human relationship: everyone needs to see the value of that interaction. If it’s not the case, the partnership is already dead before starting. So, I think this gain-gain spirit helps you thinking not only about the interests you are defending, but also to the value that you can provide to the partner and that the partner can provide to you.
The second aspect is about versatility. You have a lot of things to learn, which are outside science, it could be negotiation, basics of law, basics of clinical research, intellectual property, and these are all things that you don’t learn normally during your PhD. However, when you work in a research institute you are also speaking with researchers and clinicians, and some of them are not familiar with business, law and intellectual property. You really need to be a science lover and transmit this love to the scientists to really make clear with them that you are not there to, you know, pick their ideas, complicate things with contracts and patents, and then give those ideas to someone else to develop them. Not at all. Your goal, as well as theirs, is for their innovations to reach patients.
And the final aspect is about business acumen. Business acumen can be innate for some people. When you face a problem or you need to find a solution and you know, you do the pros and cons and you try to negotiate either with your teacher, with your mom, with your friends. So actually you can be a businessman or businesswoman in your daily life without realizing it. However, in the health field, some variables such as health policies, governmental decisions and market tendencies can impact the projects you have in hand and you need to learn how to deal with it.
Do you have tips for scientists who’d like to move into the area? So how, for example, can they build that, that business acumen when they’re already in the PhD?
The good thing about doing a PhD is that, in many countries, you have courses that you can follow. If you already realize that you are curious about something else and you want to acquire other skills, you can likely find courses related to entrepreneurship or technology transfer, valorisation of research, intellectual property. If the university offers something, I think it’s better to profit from it. There are also online platforms that are available for everybody and offer some courses on market analysis, product development and commercialisation, and many of them are free or very accessible in price. I always cite Coursera because it’s really easy to use and everybody knows it. I used it quite a lot during COVID crisis. Moreover, there are many courses organized by different entities that you need to pay for. They could be a couple of hundred euros for specific courses, up to 70-80K or more for the most prestigious MBAs. In my opinion, for being a junior business developer and to start working in a research institute, you don’t need a MBA or a hard-core business course.
I personally think that the PhD is more important in this kind of position. To work side by side with researchers and clinicians, having a PhD is definitely a plus, because it means you have done research, you have a critical spirit, you can interpret data, you can read literature, you can easily understand what clinicians and researchers are talking about. Despite the fact that I am working in industrial partnerships today, I am happy to have chosen to do a PhD and this helps every day in my work.
However, following some courses on the side or just after your PhD can be a good idea to acquire some “innovation/business” skills, complementary to your scientific profile.
Do not forget also that you can develop some skills directly on your first job. To apply for a job you don’t need to be excellent in all the skills that the recruiter is asking for but to know on which of them you are stronger or you are weaker, and show that you are ready to perform some tasks and you want to learn and evolve on others respectively.
Is there anything else that is important for scientists moving into the area to consider?
Before starting the role, your mindset also needs to change. When you do a PhD, your project is “your baby”: you nourish it, you grow up with it, and you push it forward. When you move to technology transfer, it is not about your project anymore; instead of being the leader of a project, you are the right hand of the scientist or the clinician leading that project. Leveraging on your expertise, complementary to theirs, your role will be to guide and support them towards the most pertinent path of technology transfer, but to always make sure that this aligns with their interests as well as the interests of your own institution.
What makes a good application?
To do a good application, first of all, you need to be honest. We often believe that to have a good application we have to build a good story. I think we don’t need to build a story, but we need to tell a story, and this story needs to be true. So sometimes, people see applications in which the letter of interest looks great, and then they meet the candidates, and they understand that it was all built up. And this is very bad for that application. For example, if you don’t know anything about intellectual property, you cannot just improvise. You can maybe learn by heart two or three sentences to say during the interviews, but you will not be able to keep going for long on that subject. If you don’t have some skills yet, it is better to admit it and to explain how you want to progress, how you want to learn those skills once in the job. Not having all the skills doesn’t mean you will not get the job.
You also need to be honest with yourself. If you don’t like the job, maybe it’s not worth applying for it and better you look for something else. If you’re really interested in the job, you can see quite naturally the unique points of the job, of the company or the institute you’re applying for, and you can put forward those key points in your letter of interest and during the interviews.
Last, but not least, your application needs to be original. The copy and paste from one application to the other or directly from the website of the company will not work. It is very easy for the recruiter to realise that while reading your application or when he will ask you specific questions during the interview.
What do you enjoy most about working in innovation and transfer?
What I like the most is really that you see why you’re doing this job: you always have a clear goal in mind. In my case, I work in an institute for genetic diseases and the patients are just downstairs. You see them and you know that you are working for something concrete. Thanks to clinicians, we actually know which are their dreams for their patients and we try to work in order to make those dreams come true. This motivates me every day to go to work. It also helps me to have this gain-gain spirit with our partners and to refocus on the objective – our job, it is not just about a budget or a line on a contract but it’s about getting innovations to the patients. And this motivates me enough to always try to find a compromise between all the parties involved, when needed.
The second point, I think is really human interactions and how much you can learn from them. During the PhD, you talk a lot about science with a lot of scientists. There are PhD students just focusing on their subject, and they are not really interested in anything else. But I think the right spirit to have is to open up and to learn about other subjects, other scientific discoveries, and so on, apart from your project. In roles in business development, technology transfer, alliance management, the good thing is that you open up even more. You pass from having one project on one subject to having hundreds of projects that you follow on different subjects. This is already scientifically very stimulating. And on the top of that, you work with so many different profiles, such as clinical research experts that gives their reglementary advice, lawyers who speak “legal”. You learn continuously from everybody. But at the same time, once again, the mindset needs to change, because you cannot pretend to become expert of everything. You need to accept that you will be expert in your role: if you are a business developer, you will know how to do business development. But you’re not an expert scientist, you’re not a lawyer, you’re not a clinical research expert. You really need to find a balance between what you do on your own and what you can learn from the others and do with the others. This is the richness of this kind of position!
And the main challenges in the role?
I think the main challenge of the role is that not everything depends on you. Anybody who did a PhD knows that success is always a ratio of things working versus not working. If you engage in a partnership, a technology transfer can fail for many reasons. It depends on so many variables – if the business model is solid, if governmental decisions are favourable to that business, if it is the right time for that product vs the market tendencies. And even when you partner with a pharma, for two or three years, they might change of CEO and change their strategy, then maybe the product you were developing will not be in the scope of the company anymore. I think that is maybe the most challenging part, but not only for someone in the role, but really for this field. We also see it from the first steps, you can do the sourcing of hundreds of projects, but maybe you will have 10 or 20 that will get transferred to industry: it’s a real bottleneck. It is a fact that not all discoveries or innovations are born to be products. Thus, you need to accept that you will work on hundreds of projects, but probably you will see only a small amount of them on the market in the next 5-10 years.
Is there anything you think we’ve not covered that’s really important to bring across?
Maybe one thing that I didn’t stress a lot, but which is also important is the proactivity in the transition. Sometimes it’s very good to profit from what exists already. If there are courses that are perfect for you or workshops that are organized, do profit from them. But if you and a group of people are motivated by the same interests, and this is not covered by existing activities at your institute, that is the time to be proactive. It’s what we have done actually in the past at Institut Pasteur. We had a group of PhD students who were really interested in innovation, technology transfer, and we organized seminars and workshops with experts, we selected. To be on the front line of these events is very important because you make contacts – you can contact the people you want and, among them, probably your future colleagues. This helps you to build your own network and to be visible. I think in this professional ecosystem to be visible is really important. We see it with the success of LinkedIn, for example, a professional network as others, which we should not underestimate.
Maybe one final question from my side – how much do you use English, French and other languages ?
I think in science, all the people you will meet who have a scientific background, they actually speak English, or they should! But I would say all the people who do not have a scientific background, maybe they speak English, but they would rather prefer to use the country’s language for work interactions with local people. Regarding the external partners, we work with many international companies that have at least some of their employees based in US or in UK, so they will have no problem to speak English with you. However, for small biotechs, some of the employees (depending on the position) may prefer to speak the country’s language.
To know different languages can also be useful. My mother tongue is Italian, and I thought that it was pretty useless outside Italy but it’s actually really helpful for me right now – we have many Italians in the institute, and we have partnerships with companies having Italian employees. With them, I can use my mother tongue, and this feels great and a bit closer to home!
So then would you say that for working in tech transfer in France, it’s necessary to speak French but not needed to be at the level of a native speaker?
I think you need a good level, indeed. B1 or B2-level in French would be ideal and it can get better quickly thanks to the work environment. When I arrived in Institut Imagine my level of French was not at all as it is today. It greatly improved thanks to my colleagues.
However, it’s not just a matter of languages from different countries. It’s also a matter of different “professional languages”, depending on the profession you’re doing. I’m not sure that learning French is easier than learning, for example, legal language. I think there are two different things you need to do. One is learning the language of the country you’re in and, at the same time, being proficient in English. But then the other thing you really need to work on, and it’s probably more important than being proficient in French, is to understand what your colleagues are saying with their professional language. For example, when you speak with lawyers, if they speak about, you know, clauses, articles, jurisdictions, or some intellectual property principles, and so on, you need to understand what they are saying. And same thing, for example, for clinical research expert and the quite complex regulatory environment.
Any final thoughts you want to add?
My final take home message to succeed in your transition and your future applications would be: you should dare to apply. I think there are many people who believe the transition is hard. You do need to work a bit indeed – do your homework – but many people do succeed in their transition without too much effort. I think there’s a lot of anxiety around it and I think many applications actually fail even before being an actual application – that you just look at the job offer and you’re like, yeah, I maybe have like two skills out of five, I won’t apply. I really want to stress that nothing bad will happen to you if you do not get to the interview, but at least you would be able to say that you tried. Trying to get feedback in the case of a negative answer could be also a way to understand why you failed that interview or why your application didn’t get through. But if you don’t apply, well, you will never know!
Erminia can be found on LinkedIn here.
