Really Digital, Mr Hach!
Daniel Hach’s face lights up whenever it comes to the topic of adventure. “It’s my dream to fly into outer space someday and see the earth from out there!” With his thirst for adventure and new experiences, he has the perfect profile and became the first employee at BI X, Boehringer Ingelheim’s new digital lab, which is forging new paths in the realm of digitalization.
With the BI X digital laboratory, Boehringer Ingelheim is focusing on trailblazing digital solutions for the healthcare industry and riding the crest of the digitalization wave. As Head of User Experience and SCRUM at BI X, Daniel Hach and his colleagues within the BI X leadership team are responsible for talent from the fields of data science, design, software development, and scrum at an operational level. He is convinced that BI X will be a success: “Our collaboration with the different business areas within Boehringer Ingelheim is crucial to our success. These areas provide input for our work, which we use to demonstrate how well our technological developments work. Our goal is to help patients through innovative, forward-looking solutions, and to bring Boehringer Ingelheim to the forefront of digital healthcare.”
As an external consultant, Daniel Hach helped develop the BI X concept and he is equally conversant in the technical side of digital solutions. He is personally enthusiastic about the immediate benefits that apps, tools, and big-data applications can provide for patients. “I chose BI X in part because I wanted to work in the pharmaceutical industry,” he explains. “The new solutions developed here help people and animals by improving patients' chances of improving their health.”
Interdisciplinary, international
The company is counting on close collaboration in interdisciplinary, international teams. Daniel Hach believes that BI X benefits from having a variety of employees who bring with them a wide range of experiences and knowledge about different markets. As a start-up within the company, BI X product teams follow agile development methods and therefore achieve results fast and can adapt to new learnings quickly.
Daniel Hach sees IT and pharma as naturally complementary. When asked which late inventor he would most like to converse with, he chooses Alan Turing. “Alan Turing was more than just one of the founders of computer science,” he says. “He also conducted research on biology and chemistry. That’s why I would love to ask him for his ideas on how to face challenges in the healthcare system using today’s technology.” But even without the help of Turing, Daniel Hach and his coworkers are bringing us one step closer to a future in which intelligent medications come with evaluation tools and remote diagnoses to simplify patients’ day-to-day lives and optimize therapeutic potential.