Managing a merger during Covid-19
Denis Hello of AbbVie Canada discusses the integration of Allergan in the middle of a pandemic
NPC Healthbiz Weekly is presented to you in cooperation with Peak Pharma Solutions
The past eight months have been full of challenges and new experiences for Pharma executive Denis Hello.
In March he was appointed Vice President and General Manager of AbbVie Canada. Days after moving from France to Canada to assume his new role, he was forced to make the quick decision to move his employees to a remote work environment as a result of Covid-19. Then, in the middle of the pandemic, AbbVie announced the acquisition of Allergan.
Hello (photo below) discussed these experiences on a recent episode of the NPC Podcast, a program for life sciences managers, hosted by Peter Brenders. Brenders is the CEO of the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation. (Listen to the episode here.)
“Four days after moving to Canada, I had to make a decision for the whole organization to work remotely [because of Covid-19],” said Hello.
“I knew before coming to Canada, from a pharma and healthcare point of view, it is a sophisticated country with many complexities with federal and provincial governments,” he continued. “It is an interesting country. I had some diverse experiences in Europe going from Portugal to Turkey, Israel and France—to some extent in Canada, you are mixing all those models of healthcare systems, which is quite interesting as a newcomer.”
Prior to his move to Canada, Hello was the Vice-President of Europe South for AbbVie and he also led the hematology, specialty care and customer excellence teams for Europe.
Hello began his career in finance at Rhône-Poulenc, then moved to Kraft, Mattel, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and joined Abbott where he became General Manager for France in 2010.
In May, while gaining an understanding of the Canadian healthcare system and moving his employees to a work-from-home environment, AbbVie announced the acquisition of Allergan giving Hello another task to juggle.
“The first week of the Covid crisis, we were dedicated to making sure that our patients would keep having access to our medicines, and we spent a lot of energy making sure this was happening in partnership with Health Canada,” said Hello.
“[With the merger] there was a lot of transfer of information and transfer of knowledge. We made sure that Allergan employees had a ‘buddy’ at AbbVie so that they would be integrated faster. The good thing is that this measure was positive because we've got two complementary pipelines. We've got a very similar culture, and despite the virtual environment, we were able to collaborate efficiently and quickly.”
To make the transition to the virtual environment seamless for his employees, Hello spent countless hours developing training programs for his teams to learn the new digital tools.
Hello credited his teams’ ability to quickly adjust to the new virtual environment during the pandemic. The adjustment allowed AbbVie to continue to providing support to healthcare providers prescribing treatments, Hello said.
“We had to develop many training programs to make sure that our employees would be able to deal adequately with all the new technologies which are available and making sure that our interactions were as impactful as they should be,” Hello explained.
“With the second wave, we are still investing a lot in training our people, because even if we go back to normal life at some stage, these digital tools and virtual interactions will stay.”
The takeaway: Hello admits he doesn’t have a crystal ball but taking into account the latest information about Covid-19 vaccines, he believes by the second half of 2021 things should begin returning to normal.
However, even with a return to normal, Hello sees many of the virtual tools implemented during the pandemic remaining in place.
“Virtual interactions, which were marginal before the Covid-19 crisis are going to stay because you can have a lot of qualitative interaction with HCPs and with patients using the virtual tools,” Hello said.
“We know that everybody needs human interaction, for sure. But if it is complemented with the right tool, that can be very efficient and can help to save time. Virtual engagements complement in-person engagements. We are using the pandemic to innovate and to reinvent ourselves.”
Further reading: While some virtual tools in Pharma are likely here to stay beyond the pandemic, in the tech world, work-from-home setups are likely to be the new norm. Story here.
YOUR HEALTHBIZ WEEK 12/08/20
According to a Reuters report, Merck has agreed to a three-year strategic research deal worth up to US$6.8 billion with Artios Pharma Limited to develop up to eight potential drugs for cancer by targeting DNA repair mechanisms inside cells. Under the agreement, Artios will receive US$30 million in up-front and near-term payments, plus double-digit option fees and up to US$860 million total milestones per target. The two companies will collaborate on DNA damage response (DDR) inhibitors, which are designed to block a cancer cell’s ability to repair its genetic code and are seen as a promising new group of oncology therapies.
The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson announced the submission of a Biologics License Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration seeking approval of amivantamab for the treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 20 insertion mutations whose disease has progressed on or after platinum-based chemotherapy. Amivantamab is an investigational, fully-human EGFR and mesenchymal epithelial transition factor (MET) bispecific antibody with the immune cell-directing activity that targets tumors with activating and resistance EGFR and MET mutations and amplifications.
Following a poor review of its experimental treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, Biogen announced it is partnering with Sage Therapeutics. Biogen has committed up to US$3.1 billion to the development and marketing of two drugs that Sage is developing for depression and neurological disorders. If successful, the drugs would shore up Biogen’s position in treating the nervous system. Biogen will pay Sage US$875 million in cash and buy US$650 million worth of Sage stock, in a deal to jointly develop and sell the investigational treatment zuranolone for depression in the U.S., as well as SAGE-324, which is being tested for treating essential tremor and other neurological disorders.
The Canadian Dermatology Association’s Board of Directors has named Linda Jones the Chief Executive Officer of the CDA. Jones was appointed as the interim CEO in February. Before joining the CDA, Jones served as the director of executive services and governance at the Canadian Medical Protective Association.
NATIONAL PHARMA CONGRESS WINTER WEBINAR
As announced during the final session of the 14th National Pharmaceutical Congress, plans are in the works for a winter webinar scheduled for Wednesday, February 10, 2021. Be sure to subscribe to the NPC HealthBiz Weekly for updates on the winter meeting.
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 avocation and are an inspiration to others.
More than 100 honourees have been selected during the past 18 years. In the view of the selection committee, they stand for a representative cross-section of the qualities that make our business unique and fulfilling. Each week, NPC Healthbiz Weekly will acknowledge one past Hall of Fame Honouree.
2018 Inductee
Brian Hilberdink
Novo Nordisk
Mississauga, Ont.
Editor’s note: Brian Hilberdink joined Novo Nordisk as a sales and product manager in 1995. He is currently the Senior Vice President, Commercial (Diabetes) at the company.
During Brian Hilberdink’s 23-year-long pharmaceutical career he’s stuck with one company: Novo Nordisk—the world’s largest diabetes treatment company, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. in that time, he has moved from a sales rep position to president of Novo Nordisk Canada. Shortly after graduating from Queen’s University in 1992, he began with the pharmaceutical company as a sales rep in Ontario’s Niagara Peninsula. Early on he began to appreciate the purposefulness of what he saw as more than just a sales job.
“This is not banging on doors trying to sell products to people who may or may not need them. This is actually helping to enable clinicians to make better decisions that ultimately improve and save the lives of patients. To be able to have that purposefulness in a job . . . that really appealed to me.”
His mentors included district sales manager Colleen Moody, national sales manager George Gilraine, and Rick Podsiadlo, president of Novo Nordisk at the time, who took a chance and hired him without any previous pharma experience. He says Podsiadlo created a culture where, according to Hilberdink, “every employee had a strong voice and could contribute ideas.”
Soon, he embarked on what would be an international career; moving back and forth from Copenhagen to Toronto, with a stint in Princeton, N.J. mixed in, and finally back to Toronto again. In Copenhagen he took on the role of Corporate Vice President of Global Marketing, where he was responsible for the commercialization of the company’s future insulin portfolio, which includes brands like Tresiba, Xultophy, and Ryzodeg.
As president of Novo Nordisk Canada—whose office is located in Mississauga, Ont.—one of his guiding principles has been the concept of entrepreneurialism.
“It means we’re more interested in outcomes than we are metrics,” he says. He applied that principle, in collaboration with his VP of sales, by eliminating most sales metrics in favor of empowering sales reps to manage their territories like it was their own business.
At the same time, he recognizes the importance of work-life balance.
“I do believe that I have a good balance and extend to the employees here. You’re obligated to your deliverables, not to a clock, and that’s a philosophy that I often embrace,” he says. “It means if my kid has an important function at school at 2 o’clock in the afternoon, I’m going to be there if at all possible.”
To achieve this level in his career, which required living outside of his home country for 11 years and has included five international moves in 13 years, it obviously required a degree of sacrifice from him and his family, including his wife Lynn and his two sons, Charlie and Russell. When speaking to Hilberdink, his appreciation and love for his family stands out above all.
“My career would not be possible without having an incredibly supportive family.”
NEXT WEEK
The 12/15 edition of NPC Healthbiz Weekly will feature Mark Lievonen, retired President of Sanofi Pasteur Canada, about manufacturing and distributing a Covid-19 vaccine in Canada. It’s easy to get your no-charge subscription and have the issue sent to your phone or inbox each Tuesday at 6:00 a.m. sharp.
Stay safe, stay sure, and stay on your game. We’ll see you again next Tuesday.