Exclusive Life Science Feature
A Rare-Disease
Champion
Rogerio Vivaldi's experience with rare-disease therapies
teaches that drug development is never finished until
simple and certain access for patients is ensured.
By Wayne Koberstein, executive editor
Rogerio Vivaldi, CEO, Minerva Neurosciences
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LifeScienceLeader.com
R
ogerio Vivaldi may be the most unique pharmaceutical executive I
have ever met. His background, history in the industry, and longtime mission — all sound more like an adventure than a career,
as if he slayed monsters and rescued fair humans to get where he is.
And in a way, he did. If you see Gaucher Disease as monstrous and its
sufferers as the humans in dire distress, Vivaldi will appear as the hero
discovering his fate: delivering life-saving and life-redeeming therapies
to those who need them.
Vivaldi's saga began in Brazil, where he won universal access to
Genzyme's enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) Ceredase (imiglucerase). In doing so, his travels took him from the urban streets of Sao
Paulo to the third-world regions of the Amazon. His odyssey progressed
as he followed the same calling in many other countries, then went on
to take command of a global business in treatments for Gaucher and
other extremely rare diseases where patients previously had no hope.
Prior to his current position as CEO of Minerva Neurosciences, Vivaldi
was the head of Genzyme's Rare Diseases Unit, which is an integrated
commercial organization, one of only two independent Genzyme businesses remaining after the Sanofi merger; the other concentrates on
multiple sclerosis. (Vivaldi moved to his new company just as this article
went to press.)
I come not to praise Vivaldi but to understand what makes him tick.
Overall, Vivaldi's story may enlarge the idea of precommercial product
development to include a factor normally perceived as marketing:
patient access. "There is no development without access," he says succinctly. Identifying new patients, guiding doctors through diagnosis and
treatment, and building a sustainable supply chain are all essential to
development before the market and delivery to the market.
January 2014