Sandy Farmer, PhD — Digital Innovation and Discovery R&D

More than 25 years experience creating actionable data for pharmaceutical R&D organizations

Dr. Farmer understands the challenges associated with digital innovation in the healthcare R&D space. A leading expert in making data actionable for pharmaceutical R&D organizations, he has guided several companies through the implementation of key data platforms, workflows, informatics tools and user engagement approaches. As executive director of R&D data and technology innovation and a strategic leader in the cross-R&D Genome Sciences & Technologies department within Pfizer Worldwide R&D, Dr. Farmer successfully led multiple ‘strategy to implementation’ cross-R&D efforts to address the significant and common challenges in data utilization experienced by multiple scientific and technical domains, including research biology, discovery sciences, and CMC pharmaceutical sciences. He additionally partnered with key enterprise, innovation and R&D stakeholders to advance and implement a Big Data/AI/Precision Medicine strategy. 

A recognized expert in the field of structure-based drug discovery, Dr. Farmer led the introduction and global acceptance of fragment-based screening as a practical and effective lead discovery methodology. In his role as a strategic IT leader, he advocated the use of text analytics, which combines natural-language processing and predictive modeling, in the social content space and Global Health & Value domain. As a strategic organizational leader, Dr. Farmer has collaborated extensively with R&D stakeholders in conceiving, developing and staffing: a Computational Biomedicine organization to apply real-world data in innovative ways for R&D; a Computational Target Validation organization to build human confidence-in-rationale for targets and asset programs; a Clinical Genetics and Biospecimen Scientific Services organization to maximize scientific impact from banked biospecimens; a global Scientific Information Management Expert Center to champion and incorporate new technologies and approaches into maximizing the value of available information across all pharmaceutical R&D domains.

Expertise

• Transforms discovery through AI and data innovation
• Accelerates R&D productivity through the efficient and impactful use of all available data
• Enhances R&D processes for drug discovery, precision medicine, biospecimen management, and pharmaceutical development