A First-Time CIO Three Times Over

Heller Search: What is your career background?

Ed Gemo: I worked for 29 years in IT at Pfizer in NYC. Then I had the opportunity to join Onyx Pharmaceuticals in San Francisco as their first CIO in 2012. That was an incredible experience, moving from one of the largest pharmaceutical companies to a much smaller biotech. Onyx was growing fast and it was invigorating to work in an environment that was excited about investing in IT.

Shortly after I arrived we received an approval from the FDA on a key drug and that led to even more growth. In less than a year we doubled in size from 500 employees to 1,000.  

That experience with Onyx hooked me on the culture of small biotechs, and I knew that was the only type of company I wanted to work for in the future – a company where the culture is fun, where there is amazing collaboration. At a company that is undergoing a big growth spurt there are a lot of investments focused on improving the ability of each department to scale and meet the challenge ahead. Working in this type of environment is addictive.

The success we had at Onyx led to an Amgen acquisition so after only a little more than a year and a half it was time to move on.

What came next in your career?

After Amgen acquired Onyx in 2013, I was back on the job market. InterMune asked me to come in as a consultant to evaluate their IT organization and provide an IT Organizational Model that would allow the IT team to scale and meet the demands of an expected US approval of their key drug. After just a few weeks I would learn that the consulting job was just a way of getting to know me so that they could evaluate me for their first ever CIO role.  I also got the chance to evaluate InterMune and I found it had the exact culture I was looking for. Fun, fast paced, collaborative, exciting.

I became their CIO but within four months of joining, Roche acquired InterMune. In total I was there for only ten months, but I had a great experience, helped launch a terrific new product and made strong industry connections.

So I found myself back on the job market again, but I wasn’t worried. I knew what I was looking for and was confident that I would find it.

What were you looking for?

I wanted to stay in the small biotech space. The most important things to me were the culture of the company, and the potential for growth.

How did you hear about Halozyme?

I was interviewing with a few companies in the Bay Area and doing some consulting work when I was contacted by the CEO of Halozyme, Dr. Helen Torley. We’d worked together at Onyx, where she was the Chief Commercial Officer, and I found her to be an incredible leader. She had been the CEO of Halozyme for just over a year and asked me come do a gap analysis of the IT organization. Basically she needed to know, from an IT perspective, where the technology and skills gaps were and how best to resolve those gaps.

After I delivered the gap analysis, she said, “Why don’t you come here to San Diego and help us solve this as our first CIO?” The company was anticipating a major growth period. Up to that point, IT had provided basic networking and applications, but the coming growth would require some major systems and fresh IT leadership. By then I was considering two job offers that were in San Francisco. But my wife and I were excited about Halozyme and Helen’s leadership. Plus we realized that we really loved San Diego, so we took the plunge and moved south.

What was your approach to transforming IT at Halozyme?

I had two areas of focus in my approach. First was the business lines and the executives. I talked to all of the leaders to figure out what the short term issues were, what was causing the most pain today, and what they would need over the first year or two. I put a list together so I could produce a few quick wins and get them on my side. I wanted to resolve some of their immediate pain, and then continue the conversation about the long term.

The other area of focus was, of course, my team. They were all good people doing a good job. But clearly the needs of the company were changing. I started by assuring them that I wasn’t here to fire anyone, but rather it was about growing the organization. I would be turning the department into more of a business technology organization, and would start by adding key leadership roles reporting directly to me.

Was it a welcome message?

I believe so, and I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that, even though I came with 33 years of industry experience, one thing I made sure I avoided saying was “this is how we did things at my former company”. I especially tried not to mention my large pharma experience at Pfizer.

In the small biotech world, people are concerned that large pharma people don’t really know how to operate in a smaller environment with fewer resources. You can be dismissed in people’s minds if you become labelled a “big pharma” guy.

What new functions did you add to the IT organization?

I added two major functions. The first is IT Business Partners. There is now an IT business partner for R&D, and another for G&A (general and administration). In the future, Commercial will also have its own business partner.

The second is Applications Management, a team focused on building and maintaining all business applications in R&D, G&A and Commercial.

What progress have you made in your first year as CIO?

The first thing we had to do was upgrade a lot of our networking equipment and improve cybersecurity, which included implementation of new intrusion detection systems. We also implemented a Single Sign-On solution to make it easier for colleagues who now just have to remember one set of login credentials.

One of our strategic imperatives is to focus on implementing cloud-based solutions whenever possible. We have implemented Workday for HR and Payroll. We also replaced an inefficient paper-based system for keeping track of regulated documents and replaced it with a new cloud-based system called Veeva Quality Docs. The Clinical team now uses Oracle’s systems for Electronic Data Capture and for Clinical Trial Randomization. On tap for the second half of the year will be new solutions for Regulatory Information Management (Veeva RIM), Financial Planning/Forecasting (Adaptive Insights) and Legal Contract Management (Apttus). We are very busy!

Are all the systems you add likely to be cloud-based?

Yes. I am not interested in on-premise systems as they require support resources we just don’t have. Cloud based systems require less resources for support, are easier to implement, improve our disaster recovery capabilities and provide a very good level of information security.

It’s interesting to watch how acceptance of cloud solutions has evolved. When cloud solutions first came along, I recall that everyone was concerned about whether they were secure. However, major cloud providers are capable of investing in not only information security but also redundancy at a level that most small companies cannot match. When I presented my IT strategic vision to the Executive Team I emphasized this “cloud first” approach and we have never looked back. .  

Is there an initiative you are particularly proud of, or excited about?

Absolutely. Like all biotech’s, we need to enroll patients in clinical trials to test our products. Finding patients for clinical trials is difficult and takes time. In our case we have to find patients that have untreated stage four pancreatic cancer.

I was asked to participate on a broad based team that would drive patient enrollments in a clinical study faster and more efficiently. My sub-team was focused on digital tactics that help get information to patients, caregivers and Healthcare Professionals (HCPs). We built a web site, www.halo301.com, that contains information about Pancreatic Cancer in general, as well as the specific form of Pancreatic Cancer that we are targeting with our trial, and how to get more information. There is information specific for patients, caregivers as well as HCPs. The objective is to encourage patients/caregivers/HCPs to call our call center which is manned by pharmacists who are ready to answer questions about the clinical trial. The call center pharmacists will provide even more information to the caller and then, if the caller is interested, they will be directed to the clinical trial study sites.

We are IT, but we are successfully driving better clinical trial enrollment rates.

How do you know whether your IT organization is succeeding?

Client success! And notice I didn’t say client satisfaction. I learned a long time ago that you can always satisfy a client by giving them what they want. But what if what they want isn’t the best answer? Our job is to understand the problem, and have a level of knowledge of the business process where our ideas and suggestions are respected. We operate by making recommendations, looking for innovative ways to solve problems even when they are not the most obvious ways. When our clients in the business continue to come to us for help solving their problems and we are seen as a trusted partner, then we are on the right path. My IT business partners are getting invited to many high level meetings. As long as we have clients lining up for that, then we are providing value.

Also, let’s not forget, Halozyme is a small company and we communicate openly and effectively. If there are any problems we hear about them quickly and immediately address them. That does happen, but mostly we get feedback about the good work our team is doing. And of course it never hurts to get recognized publicly as happened to two of our IT team members recently when they received a company level award for the work they have done and the positive way they go about doing it. After all, culture is important, so it is not just what you do, it is how you do it.

About Ed Gemo

Ed Gemo is the CIO and vice president at Halozyme Therapeutics, a San Diego based oncology biotech firm. Before joining Halozyme, Gemo held similar roles at Intermune (acquired by Roche), and Onyx Pharmaceuticals (aquired by Amgen). Previously, he spent 29 years in IT at Pfizer.