Meet the Team: Ilaria Fasanella, Head of Commercial and Business Development

Step inside COSMIC to meet the people behind the Knowledgebase as we highlight those driving its growth and evolution. 

In this feature, we speak to Ilaria Fasanella, who leads commercial and business development, to explore her journey from academia into the world of genomics and business strategy. She shares how her scientific background and industry experience have shaped her approach to building sustainable models around one of the world’s leading cancer mutation knowledgebases, and offers insight into how COSMIC continues to balance scientific integrity with long-term impact in an increasingly data-driven landscape.

Can you tell us about your career path and how it led you to your current role at COSMIC? What drew you to the intersection of science and commercial strategy?

I moved to the UK in 2006 to take up a postdoctoral position at the Marie Curie Research Institute, after completing my PhD in Molecular BioPathology between the University of Calabria in Italy and the NIH in the US. From the beginning, I was motivated by a desire to work on research that could ultimately have a real impact on human health.

When the Marie Curie Research Institute closed in 2009, it gave me the opportunity to rethink my professional trajectory and explore opportunities in industry. What attracted me was the possibility of helping translate cutting-edge science into tools that scientists and clinicians could actually use in practice. I joined Roche Diagnostics, where I supported UK researchers working with 454 sequencing, one of the first high-throughput Next Generation Sequencing platforms available at the time. Even in those early days, it was clear to me that NGS had the potential to fundamentally transform clinical and diagnostic practice.

Sixteen years on, genomics and NGS are now embedded in the standard of care across areas such as oncology and rare disease. As the technology matured, my focus naturally shifted to what I saw as the next major challenge: data analysis and interpretation. This led me to roles at SOPHiA GENETICS and later PierianDx, where I worked at the intersection of genomics, data, and clinical decision-making, supporting the adoption of intelligent solutions to address what had become the new bottleneck for clinicians.

Almost three years ago, I joined COSMIC at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. With the explosion of genomic data driven by NGS, the challenge is no longer generating data, but making sense of it at scale. High-quality, curated, and standardised data is essential to enable reliable interpretation and real clinical impact, and COSMIC sits right at the heart of that challenge.

What drew me to COSMIC was not only its scientific excellence and global reputation, but also the opportunity to contribute to its long-term sustainability and growth. My role allows me to bring together my scientific background and commercial experience to help develop models that support the continued development, accessibility, and impact of this critical resource, ensuring it can continue to serve both research and clinical communities worldwide.

What skills or experiences have been most critical in shaping your approach to commercial development in a highly technical and scientific environment like COSMIC?

Coming from academia has been fundamental in shaping my approach. It gives me a strong understanding of what drives decision-making in highly scientific environments - rigour, credibility, openness, and long-term impact. That perspective is essential at an organisation like the Wellcome Sanger Institute, where the scientific mission must always come first.

With over 15 years of experience in the life sciences industry, I have developed a strong commercial and strategic perspective across genomics, NGS, and clinical data platforms. This has enabled me to translate complex scientific capabilities into sustainable value, while maintaining a clear focus on long-term impact. At COSMIC, the goal is not simply to commercialise a product, but to design models that protect scientific integrity while ensuring sustainability.

Since joining COSMIC, I have focused on defining and implementing a clear commercial vision aligned with the Institute’s objectives. This has included strengthening and evolving our strategic partnership with QIAGEN (QDI), redefining its framework of engagement, and serving as the primary point of contact. In parallel,  we have established a structured governance framework with defined KPIs, introduced customer segmentation and differentiated commercial models, and launched new revenue streams through product innovation and strategic collaborations.

All of this has been delivered in a way that respects COSMIC’s public-good mandate. Partnerships are structured to preserve independence, transparency, and scientific credibility, while introducing the clarity and accountability needed to scale responsibly. In parallel, I have led organisational and process improvements strengthening core commercial capabilities to support sustainable growth.

More broadly, bringing commercial strategy into a mission-driven environment requires balance and long-term thinking. I see revenue not as profit, but as a way of enabling impact while ensuring COSMIC remains scientifically rigorous, globally relevant, and financially sustainable over time.

In a landscape with increasing competition from both public and private genomic databases, how does COSMIC maintain its unique value proposition?

Building on this, COSMIC’s differentiation is rooted in both its scientific foundations and the way it delivers value to users.

COSMIC has been established for over two decades and has played a key role in shaping standards for somatic mutation curation in cancer. Its longevity reflects sustained scientific rigour and the trust it has built across both research and clinical communities.

What differentiates COSMIC today is the depth and quality of its curation. We combine expert manual review of the scientific literature with structured automated processes to ensure consistency, accuracy, and clinical relevance at scale, transforming published evidence into structured, actionable knowledge.

Beyond data volume, COSMIC’s value lies in its interpretability and reliability. As genomic data continues to grow, the real challenge is not access, but trust and context, and that is where COSMIC provides real value.

Our focus is not simply to compete on scale, but to lead on quality, depth, and relevance, ensuring COSMIC remains a trusted reference for somatic mutation data in cancer.

How do technical experts (e.g., bioinformaticians or data scientists) work with commercial teams to enhance impact?

Delivering this level of quality and impact relies on close collaboration between technical and commercial teams.

At COSMIC, this collaboration is continuous and tightly integrated. The commercial function acts as a bridge between users and our scientific and technical teams, ensuring that customer insights directly inform product development and prioritisation.

Technical experts bring deep domain knowledge, while the commercial team gathers structured users’ feedback from academia, diagnostics, and industry. These insights are translated into clear requirements that feed into product and roadmap decisions.

Given the diversity of COSMIC’s user base, prioritisation is key. We work together to balance scientific integrity, technical feasibility, and commercial relevance, ensuring that developments deliver meaningful impact while supporting long-term sustainability.

This close collaboration allows us not only to respond to user needs, but to anticipate them, therefore strengthening COSMIC’s value as a trusted and practical resource.

How has COSMIC performed in 2025, and what makes its business model sustainable?

This integrated approach is also reflected in COSMIC’s commercial performance and long-term sustainability.

COSMIC operates on a fully self-sustaining business model, with operational and development costs covered through commercial licensing. This is fundamental to both the longevity and independence of the resource.

Maintaining and evolving a global cancer knowledgebase at this scale is inherently resource-intensive, requiring specialised expertise and robust infrastructure to ensure data quality and relevance. A sustainable licensing model allows COSMIC to remain independent from short-term funding cycles and grant uncertainty, providing the stability needed to plan and invest for the long term. Importantly, it also supports our mission: by licensing COSMIC to organisations delivering patient-related or commercial services, we are able to keep the resource freely accessible to academic researchers.

This year, we have seen sustained engagement across the research community and strong double-digit growth in our customer base, confirming continued demand for the COSMIC knowledgebase. This momentum has been supported also by our collaboration with QIAGEN (QDI), our global distribution partner.

2025 also marked the launch of the new COSMIC website, with a strong emphasis on showcasing the breadth of information and resources available within COSMIC. The site brings together detailed explanations of our data, curation processes and history, alongside resources to help users better understand how COSMIC data is generated and applied. It provides clearer insight into COSMIC’s modules, tools, and partnerships, making it easier for users to explore the full scope of what COSMIC offers, while giving the COSMIC team a central platform to communicate updates, developments, and the evolving impact of the resource.

These achievements are very much the result of a collective effort. I would like to recognise the outstanding work of the commercial team in particular, and more broadly the entire COSMIC team, whose expertise and commitment continue to drive both our scientific and commercial success. 

Ultimately, this approach demonstrates that commercial sustainability is not in conflict with COSMIC’s public mission but it is what enables it.

Where do you see COSMIC heading in the next 3–5 years? Are there any strategic priorities you’re particularly excited about?

Looking ahead, COSMIC is well positioned to continue building on this foundation.

Over the next three to five years, I see COSMIC strengthening its position as a reference for curated somatic mutation data in cancer, while continuing to evolve alongside an increasingly data-driven and AI-enabled research and clinical landscape.

As genomic data continues to grow, the real challenge is not volume, but interpretability, quality, and context. A key priority will be to further enhance the depth, structure, and interoperability of COSMIC’s data, ensuring it integrates seamlessly into analytical pipelines, clinical workflows, and emerging AI-driven platforms.

Expanding strategic collaborations will also be important, both scientific and commercial. Being part of the Wellcome Sanger Institute provides a unique foundation of scientific excellence and innovation, which we will continue to build on.

At the same time, long-term sustainability remains central. Continued investment in product development, infrastructure, and curation will be essential to ensure COSMIC remains differentiated by quality, reliability, and impact.

What I find particularly exciting is the opportunity to position COSMIC at the intersection of curated biological insight and advanced computational approaches, enabling researchers and clinicians to extract more actionable knowledge from complex cancer genomics data.

Ultimately, our ambition is to continue delivering value while bringing together academic, industry, and clinical data to advance the fight against cancer.

 

 

We hope you’ve enjoyed getting to know Ilaria and gaining a deeper appreciation for the people and stories behind COSMIC’s data. Throughout this series, we’ll continue to introduce you to the curators, scientists, developers, and commercial team who keep COSMIC evolving and ensure it remains an invaluable resource for the global cancer research community. Stay tuned for more conversations, and don’t forget to follow us on our linkedin or subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest updates.