Spotlight with Bob Balderas, MBA

1 .What makes FOCIS unique?

What’s most important here is the individuals behind it.  These are individuals that are dedicated to education, they’re dedicated to translation of information to a patient.  They’re individuals that are trying to drive collaborations, they’re trying to link different disciplines of biology and technology, all the way across different countries and different types of perspectives.  It’s a society that’s not dedicated to a certain technology, but is completely agnostic to the types of things & technologies that are out there.  Bottom line is what technology best answers those questions?  I think what sets the whole organization apart though, is something very, very special & I’d say there’s a patient at the end of everything that every scientist that’s here, every company that’s here, and the organization there’s a patient at the end of everything that we do.

2. If your colleague asked you “Why should I join FOCIS”, what would you tell them?

I think the most important part there is individuals all share, kind of 1 thing.  These are deeply embedded life interest, especially in this field, and a deeply embedded life interest would be not what they did not as a physician or perhaps not as a scientist that works in a certain discipline, but their individuals that have something in common that is that they want to impact human life.  So I think I would share with them that there are many different types of platforms here at this program.  That truly allow individuals to see how they can best connect in, to help answer questions, and I think that’s probably the most impactful and most important part

3.Why should I attend a FOCIS Annual Meeting?

There are lots of companies here today.  I think organizations and especially companies are actually changing.  I think they’re all asking questions today.  I think as generations change and again this organization is not that old, but there’s individuals behind it that are inviting people to contribute in a different way.  They want individuals to be in individual companies, and individuals to share their ideas, so I think companies here are here to listen.  Companies are here to share all their technologies, and yes, it’s not alteristics.  These companies are here to do what they need, which is to maximize the wealth of their shareholders, but in the end, I think we have a generation of individuals that are seeing that translation of something to an impact an individual to understand human health in a completely different way & disease is something that’s more important than the monetary parts of businesses.