Arno
Schaepe
25+
years of experience
years of experience
Fractional CTO — Scientific Computing, AI & Data for Life Sciences
Arno is a mathematician who has spent more than 25 years building software that applies algorithms and machine learning to life science questions, long before “AI” became the word for it. He joined Definiens as a software developer in 1998 and spent over two decades there, progressing through Director of Platform Development, Chief Architect, VP Product Development and VP & Chief Architect to VP Product & Innovation at Definiens, The Tissue Phenomics Company. Along the way he took the company’s image analysis technology from an early prototype to its core product, was responsible for that product for many years, and later brought up and matured new products and technologies in digital and computational pathology. Since 2020 he has been CTO of Noselab, a Munich biotech company, where he built the entire digital side of the business, from software and IT to data, along with the team behind it, working hands-on throughout. He is a named inventor on multiple patents in image analysis, has co-authored publications on tissue phenomics and cancer research, and serves as a panel CTO with CTO Grand Rounds. He holds a Diplom in Mathematics from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
It quite often boils down to solid work on solving the problem: sit down, first understand the problem and analyse it, develop a plan to solve it, and then execute it. It sounds a little bit boring, but most of the time this was the way we moved out of difficult situations.
Good
match for
B2B life science, biotech and pharma companies that need to turn biological data into working software and products, from early prototype to a product in the market and its first stages of scaling. Especially strong where machine learning, scientific computing and data science meet lab technologies and measurement methods, and where someone needs to speak the language of both software teams and scientists in medicine and biology. A hands-on technical leader who builds the software, data and IT foundations himself, and who is equally comfortable building and hiring the team behind them.
Arno Schaepe's industry experience
Biotech
Pharma
Digital & computational pathology
Medical image analysis
Life science research & lab technologies
Scientific software & data science
B2B healthcare technology
When to bring us in
Typical decisions
The critical technology decisions leaders face when delivery, investment or product direction is at risk.How do we assess the quality of our biological and lab data before we build on it?
Should we use classical scientific computing and machine learning, or large language models, for our problem?
How do we take our research prototype to a working product in the market?
How do we build the software, data and IT foundations of a young biotech company?
Which technical roles do we need first, and how do we assemble a team across biology, software and algorithms?
How do we set up hiring so it doesn’t consume our technical leaders’ time?
Should we build our team in-house, or work with nearshore or offshore partners?
A customer has asked for something beyond our current capabilities - how do we plan it and deliver?
How do we protect our IP when working with external partners in a sensitive biology space?
Examples
At Definiens, took the company’s image analysis technology from an early prototype to its core product, then held responsibility for the product for many years, focusing on stability and scaling
Led platform development and architecture at Definiens as Director of Platform Development, Chief Architect and VP & Chief Architect, and later drove product and innovation in tissue phenomics and digital pathology
As CTO of Noselab, built up all digital parts of the company, including software, IT and data, together with the entire data, IT and software team
Named inventor on multiple patents in image analysis, including context-driven image mining to generate image-based biomarkers, and co-author of publications on lung tumour analysis, mitosis detection in malignant melanoma and tissue phenomics for cancer immunotherapy
Led cross-functional recovery plans with the CEO, sales and development leads when customer requests exceeded the company’s capabilities, aligning all stakeholders on one plan and delivering it to close deals and solve the technical challenge
Worked for several years with distributed developers across Eastern Europe, both in-house and through external partners, and with an offshore development partner in India
Articles
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Grand Rounds Availability
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