Keeping culture in focus
Ross Glover explains how culture has been central to his company's success (360 words, 2.5 min)
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Courage and resilience, said Ross Glover, General Manager of Taiho Pharma Canada, are cornerstones of his company’s culture.
On the latest episode in Season 8 of the NPC Podcast, Glover (photo below) shared his thoughts on building a cohesive, engaged team and growing during the pandemic and beyond.
Glover started the Canadian branch of the Japanese pharmaceutical giant in 2017, which focuses mainly on oral oncology medications. “Bringing efficacy together with tolerability has always been Taiho’s focus,” Glover said, “giving cancer patients drugs they can take at home.”
Glover said the development of company culture was key to launching and growing the Canadian business. Focusing on cultural tenets allowed Taiho Canada to distinguish itself from others in Big Pharma. “I’m very proud of my team during the pandemic because we really stuck to our cultural tenets, and one of them is resilience,” Glover said.
“We had to focus on our employees through this pandemic and make sure they understood how the business was evolving and changing,” he said. For Taiho Canada’s business, which Glover clarified is “mostly later-stage cancer treatments,” creativity and resilience were necessary. “Those [later-stage] patients unfortunately suffered during the pandemic where the focus was on first-stage treatments for cancer and maintaining treatment,” he said.
Nevertheless, Taiho’s team weathered the upheaval, even launching a new drug “digitally from beginning to end” while collaborating remotely during the pandemic.
“We’ve had no turnover since 2017, but we have grown and we’ve had to hire,” Glover said. “To attract talent, you have to be innovative, [and] I think the innovation comes from the people who are already in the company.”
“If your employees are saying that they love where they work, that they’re happy, that they understand the long-term vision of the company […] you will attract the best talent in the industry,” Glover said. “It’s speaking to culture.”
“[Culture] is the way for you to be competitive above and beyond salaries and benefits,” he opined. To develop it, Glover said, “I think you have to work on engagement more than incentives.”
THIS WEEK 11/01/22
Janssen announced that the U.S. FDA has approved Tecvayli (teclistamab-cqyv) for the treatment of relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma in adult patients who have previously received four or more lines of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor, immunomodulatory drug and anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody.
The U.S. FDA approved AstraZeneca’s Imjudo (tremelimumab) in combination with Imfinzi (durvalumab) for the treatment of unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in adult patients.
Roche Canada announced that Health Canada has authorized Actemra IV (tocilizumab for injection) for the treatment of hospitalized adult Covid-19 patients who are receiving systemic corticosteroids, and require supplemental oxygen.
Bayer announced that Health Canada approved Kerendia (finerenone) as an adjunct treatment to standard care for adult patients with chronic kidney disease and type 2 diabetes. Kerendia reduces the risk of end-stage kidney disease, cardiovascular death, non-fatal myocardial infarction and hospitalization for heart failure.
LISTEN NOW
In season eight of the NPC Podcast, Ross Glover, General Manager of Taiho Pharma Canada, talks about launching a drug during Covid, whether a science or business degree is best for entering pharma, and the clinical applications of AI in the life sciences. Hear him in conversation with podcast hosts Mitch Shannon, Jim Shea and Mark McElwain.
CANADIAN HEALTHCARE MARKETING HALL OF FAME
The Canadian Healthcare Marketing Hall of Fame awards were established in 2002 to honour healthcare marketers who have contributed to our vocation and inspire others.
More than 100 honourees have been selected during the past 18 years. In the selection committee’s view, they represent a cross-section of the qualities that make our business unique and fulfilling. NPC Healthbiz Weekly will acknowledge one past Hall of Fame Honoree each week.
2001 Inductee
Doug Ballingall
Mississauga, Ont.
This is the 21st anniversary of the establishment of the Canadian Healthcare Marketing Hall of Fame, and for the next few issues, we will be revisiting the inaugural class of inductees.
Editor’s note: Doug died in May, 2020.
A second-generation drug industry employee whose father was a Bristol-Myers rep, Doug Ballingall first carried the bag in southwestern Ontario for Mead Johnson in the ‘60s. “I was crazy to get into marketing,” he recalls, and his ambition quickly led to a position as a group product manager with the company which, ironically, would become part of the Bristol-Myers Squibb family.
He switched to the supply side in the mid-1970s, becoming a media rep for the medical journal MD of Canada, where he introduced the concept of readership research. With his career in publishing thriving, he received a concerned call from his father; who had just stumbled across a news item that Ottawa intended to enact legislation to drive foreign-owned publications, such as MD, out of the country. The law came to pass in 1977, and Ballingall subsequently found himself disconnected from the pharma business for the first and only time during a 40-year career, marketing chocolates and dessert products for a large Swiss packaged goods company. He found his role less than sweet and welcomed a call from some former colleagues: “We’ve started this advertising agency. We think you ought to join us.”
The agency was SMW Advertising of Toronto (now Publicis), which soon became a powerful force on the Canadian agency scene, with Astra among its key accounts. After spending 10 years at SMW with Astra as a client. Ballingall says he was lured to the other side of the desk, joining the Mississauga, Ont. drug maker as divisional marketing and sales director.
After seven years with the company, he recalls, “[Astra president] Gerry McDole called me into his office. He said, ‘We have a problem with CME,’ as he called it. ‘Fix it.” Since receiving those instructions, AstraZeneca's director of professional education has attempted to do just that. He undertook the new job by returning to school and taking a preceptorship at the University of Toronto. He also travelled across Canada, meeting with medical school faculty, and consulting his competitors. Through the process, he says, we have learned much more about the previously obscure subject of how doctors learn.
He is currently co-chair of the CHE Working Group of Rx&D and plans to retire from AstraZeneca at year-end. Through a career which has encompassed strikingly diverse activities--sales, marketing, communications, and education-he says his proudest accomplishment is having sponsored newcomers into the industry, who have achieved their own successes. “I believe in searching for what's in here,” he says, pointing at his chest. “What the resume doesn’t tell you. The biggest kick I get out of life is hiring young people and watching them come along.”
Register now for the 16th Annual National Pharmaceutical Congress on Wednesday, November 2
As Canada’s most important stage for leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, the Congress is an opportunity to learn, reflect, and network with the industry’s most prominent thought leaders and visionaries.
Join us at the Mississauga Convention Centre on November 2 for five panels featuring reflections, ideas, and innovations from luminaries in the Life Sciences industry:
The Future of Rare Disease & Oncology
Omni-Channel Marketing
Updated Perspectives for the New Normal
Evolving Roles in Commercial & Medical
Pharma’s New Role in the LifeSci Ecosystem
Learn more at phamacongress.info
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