Riccardo Pigliucci, former CEO of Life Sciences International PLC and past president and COO of Perkin Elmer Corp. thinks he has found a model that will serve the small companies' needs to build value, keep up with technological innovation and create large enough operations to make Big pharma feel comfortable in dealing with them. Discovery Partners International is a sort of holding company for drug discovery tool companies. It has made its first investments in combinatorial chemistry company Irori and chemical library provider ChemRx.