I studied a Master’s degree in data science, but I’ve always had a deep-rooted interest in biology and wanted to use my technical skills for the greater good. That’s why I went on to do another Master’s in biomedical informatics, and after graduating, looked for roles involving patient care.
I joined Boehringer Ingelheim’s Non-Clinical Drug Safety department, which carries out many of the checks required before a drug makes it to clinical trials. I’m part of the Integrative Toxicology Core, where we look at potential on and off-target toxicities, or ways a drug could adversely affect a patient once administered.
My role has two components. One part is pure data science, developing natural language processing-driven tools to perform literature search tasks. The other part isn’t really what a traditional data scientist would do: generating target safety reports for some of the therapeutics in our pipeline.
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“I never lost my passion for biology, so I’m really grateful that I can do data science and dedicate time to learning about the biology behind these therapeutics.”
I never lost my passion for biology, despite pursuing studies in other areas, so I’m really grateful to be in a position where I can do data science, but at the same time dedicate a portion of my time to learning about the biology behind these therapeutics.
One of the main reasons I joined Boehringer Ingelheim was because of the data transformation the company is taking on. During my interview process, I learned about the various digital science initiatives and thought, “Wow, there are some really great things happening in this company, and a lot of people are working in a data-driven way.”
I’ve now been in my role for over six months, and I can see there is so much effort being put into data science across the company, across so many different groups – you know it’s being taken very seriously. Being ‘data-driven’ isn’t just a buzzword here, it’s actually something people are willing to invest in, and to train themselves and others in.
It seems to me Boehringer Ingelheim is always a good place to work if you have interests in healthcare or patient care. But I would say now is a particularly interesting time to join because there’s just so much energy surrounding this data-driven movement. If you have great ideas, and need support to bring your ideas to fruition – or if you want opportunities to upskill in areas where you’re less knowledgeable – it’s a really great place to be.
If you’d like to be a part of Boehringer Ingelheim’s exciting data transformation, we’d like to hear from you.
George Okafo
