Hernando
Senior Medical Director, Clinical Research
Q: What are your basic job responsibilities?
Hernando: I am a senior medical director working in clinical research at Cubist, where I am responsible for key aspects of clinical development for new compounds, particularly CB-183,315 and pediatric clinical development activities for daptomycin. As a physician trained in pediatrics and critical care, I have dedicated my entire professional life to clinical research serving different organizations in public health, non-profit organizations, and academic institutions. I have spent the last 15 years in the pharmaceutical industry helping to develop anti-infective compounds for serious diseases.
My main role at Cubist is to provide the best risk-benefit path for new therapies from discovery to clinical practice in order to provide safe and efficacious therapies to patients in need by envisioning, designing, and implementing effective clinical programs in all phases of clinical development (Phases 1-4). Through internal networking and team collaboration, I am responsible for creating clinical protocols using either standard clinical trial designs or by using novel concepts in clinical trial designs to later on negotiate with internal and external key stakeholders.
In general, my job requires constant review of the medical literature and constant assessment of data gathered for the new compounds in development. On a regular basis I produce documents to support clinical trials, and important documents to communicate with regulatory authorities. Among those documents, perhaps the most rewarding of all is the write up of the clinical study reports, submissions to regulatory agencies and scientific articles submitted for publication in medical journals once a trial finishes.
Q: How long have you worked at Cubist?
Hernando: I have worked at Cubist for 6 months (as of November 2011).
Q:What attracted you to Cubist?
Hernando: While most pharmaceutical companies have lost interest in the infectious disease space because there is more of a financial incentive to pursue other classes of drugs, I viewed Cubist as a company standing up as one of the big players with an interest in products for acute care specially antibiotics that are having and will continue to have a big impact in public health.
The successful story of daptomycin, a drug that has become a great commercial success, the three additional compounds for clinical development (CXA-201, CB-183,315, and ADL5945), and the atmosphere of innovation and creativity fostered at Cubist and the passion showed by the new clinical team assembled were the key factors in my decision to join Cubist.
After working several years for a big pharma company, I wanted to keep a balance between innovation and efficiency where I could nurture my inquisitive mind and at the same time be welcomed to provide new ideas in an open environment where innovation is part of the DNA. That place, is Cubist.
Q: Growing up, at what point did you know that you wanted to be a doctor?
Hernando: I have two decisive moments that coincided with the desire to learn the “art” of medicine or becoming a doctor and the desire to “study” medicine or becoming a scientist. At age 7, I underwent surgery for an appendectomy but had to stay in a community hospital for a week. I still have vivid memories of the care provided to me by the general surgeon and the nurses. Perhaps, my childish magical thinking that I was cured almost instantly made a footprint on my desire to be a “powerful healer” or healthcare provider.
My interest vanished over the years by not having a doctor or a role model to follow in my family. However, my interest woke up again in my teen years, when I found myself attracted to the biology concepts and the research involved. I got the passion every time in high school when I was asked to provide reports for lab practice to the point that my teachers said I did not have to provide extensive and detailed reports.
Q: Name one (or two) thing(s) about yourself that most employees may not know about you.
Hernando: I dedicate daily time to continue learning classical guitar. In November 2011, I was accepted to be part of the rehearsals of the Boston Classical Guitar Orchestra which is composed of 12 players. I hope one day I will be part of the group for performances. My interest now is to learn all varieties of flamenco rhythms, a style of music born in Spain. In general, flamenco is considered one of the most difficult styles to play with nylon string guitars and the longest to learn. I spend easily two hours a day practicing and enjoying listening and watching flamenco guitar players.
I jumped 13 times from an airplane as part of airborne military training. After I graduated from high school at age 16, I was drafted for military service. I had the opportunity to do airborne training where jumping five times was the minimum requirement to “pass” the course. The first five jumps are not enjoyable since you jump because you have to and basically you follow others. However, I was selected to have additional jumps and be the first in the airplane group to prepare the jump for others to follow me. This experience gave me the opportunity to enjoy the scenery from the plane and air.
Q: What do you do for fun outside of work?
Hernando: Spending time with my family and while many people enjoy solving puzzles (word, sudoko, etc), I do enjoy programming computers as a way to develop effective algorithms and troubleshoot for errors. I do it for fun rather than for business. Over the years I have developed about a dozen real applications. A key component of my hobby is to develop conceptual data models that are independent of the technology used. This type of thinking has helped me in my career for organizing my ideas and for coming out with efficient and innovative ideas. Recently, I developed an application to browse a medical vocabulary (MedDRA) that I implemented for Android smart phones and hope to port it to iPhone devices.
Q: What information might you share with prospective employees or with new employees who have just started to help them decide to work at Cubist?
Hernando: There is an incredible social network group of talented people interconnected at Cubist with high professional standards willing to help you or to listen to your ideas.
Q: What is your favorite Cubist benefit?
Hernando: First Friday! I love the social interactions and the efforts the company put to communicate or celebrate.
Q: Have you always held your present job?
Hernando: At Cubist, yes. However, in the pharmaceutical industry I have had the rare opportunity as a physician to work in areas like data management, the medical coding team, as well as in working in other therapy areas in a variety of projects in the US and outside US.
Q: What are your favorite movies?
Hernando:
What Dreams May Come (1998)
Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
Foreign movies:
Kolya (1996) Czech Republic
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Taiwan
Devdas (2002) India
Turtles Can Fly (2004) Iran/Iraq
Departures (2008) Japan
Milennium Series (2009, 2010) Sweden
Q: What makes working at Cubist different from your other experiences?
Hernando: The easy accessibility and the level of interaction with all members of the multidisciplinary team I work with.
Q: What is the most satisfying part of your job?
Hernando: Knowing that we are making a difference in the life of patients.