Mike Rea
CEO, IDEA Pharma
A self-styled innovation protagonist/antagonist, and “geek,” Rea is an established author who has been appearing consistently in our Power List every year since 2017. Creator of the annual Pharmaceutical Innovation Index, Rea is Senior Fellow, FasterCures, at Milken Institute; Advisor, BioEthics International; Strategic Innovation Advisor, Nanoform; Advisor, OneHealth/ FidoCure; and the Owner and Chief Musical Officer of Medical Records, an indie record label.
What has been the biggest breakthrough in biopharma in recent years?
Probably the quiet revolution – so much attention goes to molecules and science, but breakthroughs in engineering, manufacturing, clinical studies, and IT have enabled scaling and the kinds of technology we’d have struggled with in decades before.
If you weren’t in the pharma industry, what would you be doing instead?
I suspect I’d be happiest running a dog rescue center. I’ve five dogs of my own, and have fostered about 15 over the past five or six years.
Do you have any strong opinions with which the rest of the field tends to disagree?
One simple one: innovation is what you launch successfully, and phase I and phase II should be exploratory, not confirmatory.
What was the most serendipitous moment in your career?
When I stepped away from a company that had just been acquired because I disagreed with their strategy. This period allowed me to see that I could take the step to start IDEA, instead of going straight to work for a competitor.
