CFO Intelligence Magazine – Winter 2022
Paolo Tombesi
Turning Point Therapeutics, Inc, CFO
Seasoned CFO Paolo Tombesi left the security of Big Pharma companies like Novartis for smaller ones like Turning Point Therapeutics, Inc., a precision oncology company developing next-generation therapies that target genetic drivers of cancer.
He sees his own journey as a reflection of the broader pharma landscape, where larger companies may benefit by taking lessons from smaller ones. “Global competition and the threat to patent protection mean that large pharmaceutical companies increasingly have to think like startups,” cautions Tombesi. “But equally importantly, CFOs need to adopt a startup mindset.”
Before joining Turning Point in July 2021, Tombesi most recently held the CFO role at Epizyme, a pre-revenue biotech that’s developing and delivering novel epigenetic — or non-DNA sequence therapies. Prior to that, he was CFO at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. in the U.S. and earlier served in high-level financial positions with global companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb, Unilever NV and Johnson & Johnson. Tombesi began his “smaller is better” journey in 2017 when he left Novartis for Insmed Inc., a biopharma focused on treatments for patients with serious and rare diseases.
STRIVING FOR PERSONAL GROWTH
“I wanted to be CFO of a growing biotech, where I could get involved with investor relations, capital raises, and helping to build a company through its entire spectrum of early development to commercial market,” he says. “Your staff and financial resources may be smaller, but your responsibilities grow. So, it’s a way to experience the full life of a developing enterprise. At a large pharmaceutical, you’re either in the big R&D phase, or at the commercial stage, but at a smaller enterprise you live the whole spectrum every day and it’s personally very fulfilling; although, especially at a smaller firm, you have to be creative and flexible about capital and how to allocate resources.