After the “magical moment of hope” when the first human genome was sequenced, Jeanne Kehren switched from veterinary medicine to the pharmaceutical industry. Today, she is the SVP of Digital & Commercial Innovation and CIO at Bayer Pharmaceuticals and works in various areas, including sustainability, digital health, and digital transformation. In this episode of Trends from the Trenches, host Stan Gloss speaks with Kehren about what drew her to pharmaceuticals, the potential future of digital twins, and what innovation means to her. Kehren also shares her thoughts about generative AI’s role in innovation and the impact it might have on the job market.
Jeanne Kehren, SVP Digital & Commercial Innovation & CIO, Bayer Pharmaceuticals
Jeanne Kehren graduated from the Maisons-Alfort Veterinary School and holds a master’s in Virology from the Pasteur Institute and a PhD in Immunology from the Paris 7 University. She started her career at Novartis, where she worked in different R&D roles and drove the integration of innovative technologies in drug development. She also fostered the integration of large-scale data in pre-clinical and clinical investigations and developed biomarker and stratification approaches across different disease areas. She joined Sanofi in 2009 as Project Director and held successive positions in Product Development across different therapeutic areas, bringing together Commercial, R&D and Industrial Affairs teams on some major development projects. After joining the Global Strategic Development group in charge of products and Franchise investment strategies, she took the lead of the Early Assets group for Diabetes & Cardiovascular and Primary Care working on the reshaping of the portfolio and the development of new businesses. Jeanne joined Bayer in 2019 heading Digital & Commercial Innovation. Since February 2021, she serves as Chief Information Officer Pharmaceuticals in addition to her other responsibilities.
