Ron Cohen and Denise Duca
Denise Duca and Ron Cohen discuss Acorda’s unique culture
Denise Duca and Ron Cohen discuss Acorda’s unique culture
Rick Batycky, Kevin Kee and Ernie Penachio share what keeps their team at Acorda motivated.
Sal Scimemi, Kim Barry and Abhi Kamerkar discuss how their departments works together to produce new therapies.
There’s a lot more to my role here than finance and numbers. It’s understanding what the whole organization is adding up to. My experience working at Acorda is that we’re all committed to one thing, changing people’s lives, no matter what department we work in. It’s refreshing to see so many people in one company with so many different roles, all going in one direction.
There’s a sense of family at Acorda, that we’re all working toward the same thing. And it’s wonderful to see a combination of caring for each other on a personal level, and also the commitment to wanting to do our best for the people that can benefit from the new therapies we’re developing.
We certainly look for technical capability in the position that one is applying for—those skills are important. But we put just as much focus on cultural fit as we put on technical expertise. We look for people who have integrity, who are good communicators, who are innovative self-starters, who are enthusiastic and passionate, who can really roll up their sleeves and get involved in building a great company as members of a team.
Most people with MS want to understand the science and how drug works. Honest, impactful, meaningful communications. That’s what they can expect from my group and Acorda as a whole.
Recently, we’ve had the capacity to hire a additional scientists. There’s been a bit of a mixture of homegrown and external scientists, but they have been captured by the excitement of working on projects that are unusual for a small biotech company in the fact that it is not based on any particular technology.
And so I applied for the job. It was doing research here on therapies for people with spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis—and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my life. I couldn’t believe it, to be honest with you.