Loren­za Magno

Title

Fos­ter­ing inno­va­tion in men­tal health: Bridg­ing the gap between acad­e­mia and industry 

Abstract

The jour­ney from men­tal health diag­no­sis to effec­tive treat­ment is fraught with chal­lenges, includ­ing over­lap of symp­toms across ill­ness­es, a dis­con­nect between diag­noses and neu­ro­bi­ol­o­gy, and a reliance on tri­al-and-error treat­ment meth­ods. These issues under­score the need for a bet­ter under­stand­ing of men­tal health ill­ness­es, lead­ing to a more per­son­al­ized and pre­cise approach to psychiatry. 

At Boehringer Ingel­heim, we are embrac­ing a patient-cen­tric approach which includes improved patient strat­i­fi­ca­tion, iden­ti­fy­ing new ther­a­peu­tic con­cepts and advanc­ing nov­el chem­i­cal, bio­log­i­cal and dig­i­tal approach­es in order to find new treat­ment options for neu­ropsy­chi­atric conditions. 

This endeav­our neces­si­tates a col­lab­o­ra­tive effort, bring­ing togeth­er acad­e­mia, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try, and oth­er stake­hold­ers in men­tal health care. We are com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing these part­ner­ships, believ­ing that togeth­er, we can advance the devel­op­ment of tar­get­ed, effec­tive treatments. 

Here, we will detail our research phi­los­o­phy and col­lab­o­ra­tive mod­el with acad­e­mia, illus­trat­ing how these part­ner­ships are essen­tial in advanc­ing our under­stand­ing of men­tal health illnesses. 

Biog­ra­phy

Hav­ing tran­si­tioned from acad­e­mia to drug dis­cov­ery, first at a char­i­ty-fund­ed insti­tute and then in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try, I have explored neu­ro­science research from var­i­ous per­spec­tives. This jour­ney has tak­en me across Europe, enrich­ing my cul­tur­al back­ground and expand­ing my pro­fes­sion­al network. 

I obtained a degree in Biotech­nol­o­gy applied to Phar­ma­cy from the Uni­ver­sità degli Stu­di di Milano, fol­lowed by a Ph.D. in Med­ical Neu­ro­sciences from Hum­boldt-Uni­ver­sität zu Berlin. Dur­ing these years, I worked on projects rang­ing from Alzheimer’s dis­ease and neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion to brain devel­op­ment, span­ning both human and ani­mal research. 

Dur­ing my post­doc­tor­al tenure at the Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege Lon­don (Wolf­son Insti­tute for Bio­med­ical Research), I honed my inter­est in under­stand­ing how neu­ronal het­ero­gene­ity is gen­er­at­ed dur­ing brain devel­op­ment and how altered devel­op­men­tal tra­jec­to­ries can lead to neu­rode­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­ders. Sub­se­quent­ly, I shift­ed back to a more trans­la­tion­al research set­ting and joined the Alzheimer’s Research UK UCL Drug Dis­cov­ery Insti­tute. There, I led teams and projects aimed at iden­ti­fy­ing new treat­ments for neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive dis­or­ders, focus­ing on new biol­o­gy in the field, includ­ing mod­u­lat­ing tar­gets in microglia. 

Since 2024, I joined Boehringer Ingel­heim. In my cur­rent role, I lead the Exter­nal Inno­va­tion Team with­in the Dis­cov­ery Research Neu­ro­science & Men­tal Health depart­ment. We col­lab­o­rate with aca­d­e­m­ic and research part­ners, com­ple­ment­ing our inter­nal research with the goal to enhance our under­stand­ing, and dis­cov­er­ing bet­ter treat­ments for psy­chi­atric dis­or­ders and oth­er men­tal health conditions.