UPDATED: FDA's former IT boss nails down industry gig

Eric Perakslis

After wrapping up a stint as CIO of the FDA early this year, informatics expert Eric Perakslis has joined an industry consultancy known as Precision for Medicine as a senior adviser. He is expected to aid the group's bioinformatics and IT practices.

Perakslis, a former informatics leader at Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ), has taken the job with the Bethesda, MD-based group after also accepting a post as executive director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He plans to spend the vast majority of his time in his position at Harvard, he said in an email. 

In an effort to utilize loads of digital data for product development, life sciences companies are recruiting data scientists and informatics veterans. Precision for Medicine formed in 2012 to advise these companies on technology needs for their next-generation medical products, Bio-IT World reported.

"Dr. Perakslis is an important addition to the Precision for Medicine leadership team," Mark Clein, the company's president, said in a statement. "Informatics and information technology are at the center of the advances taking place in drug development and Dr. Perakslis brings a rare combination of insight, experience, and success from his leadership experience in industry, government, and academia."

Perakslis was named one of FierceBiotechIT's Biotech Techies this year.

- here's the release
- read the Bio-IT World piece

Special Report: Eric Perakslis - Fierce's Top 10 Biotech Techies - 2013

Editor's note: Perakslis wrote me a note after this article appeared to say that his primary gig will be at Harvard. The story was updated with this information. (Also, he will be speaking at our October executive breakfast in Boston on data science trends, and we'll be sharing more details on this event soon.)