Pharma’s future in the post-Covid-19 world
Ronnie Miller of Roche Canada speculates on the industry's post-pandemic environment (600 words, 3 mins.)
NPC Healthbiz Weekly is presented to you in cooperation with Peak Pharma Solutions
With much of Canada in various stages of re-opening following the third wave of Covid-19, Ronnie Miller sees positive signs of recovery in the pharma industry.
Though he does not envision sales representatives heading back into doctor’s offices just yet, Miller, the President and CEO of Roche Pharmaceuticals Canada, has noticed an uptick in hiring throughout the industry.
“The industry is certainly on a hiring drive,” he said. “I'm seeing a lot of activity from head-hunters and other companies starting to build resources again.”
Miller (photo below) discussed his vision for the post-pandemic pharma industry on the season four finale of the NPC Podcast, a program for pharma executives hosted by Peter Brenders (listen to the episode here.)
As companies build resources, Miller said pharma must change how it interacts with its customers in the new normal. He suggests the traditional representatives’ visit with physicians will be replaced with more digital contact.
Miller, who is also the Chair of the Board of Directors of Innovative Medicines Canada, added that Roche Canada has begun looking at more agile methodologies and new ways of working.
“You try and de-structure your company, take out layers. Swarms, squads, and chapters are the new buzzwords,” he explained. “Chapters, if you will, are the functional capabilities, and squads are knocking those people together to tackle problems and sometimes done in sprints over two or three days.
“Where traditionally a meeting would be held once a week for an hour, for a month and two months and three months and then maybe come to a solution, we arrive at those solutions very quickly. Part of the philosophy is to deal with what's called a minimum viable product to try and move away from perfectionism, which our industry tends to suffer from, and move quickly.”
Despite pharma being a traditionally conservative industry and slow to make changes, Miller believes the industry is heading for a re-invention.
“I think the customers will expect something different,” said Miller. "I think of doctors—we can never get hold of a customer via telephone, but we seem to be able to get hold of them though by Zoom or Google Hangouts. I think that they are very comfortable [with this technology].
“[Take] my GP, for example. I've had a couple of calls with him over the past year, he's up at his cottage in the Muskokas, and he's loving it, and if that's the case, then the world has changed, and we have to adapt to that particular change.”
The takeaway: As pharma prepares to head to a new, post-Covid-19 normal, Miller expects changes to many aspects of the industry, including the traditional office space, which he says is no longer necessary.
“I really don't think we do [need office space] in the traditional sense,” Miller said. “As I mentioned earlier, with squads, we now give up the meeting rooms as such to a squad—there are post-it notes and flip charts all over the place, [and] there’s a ban on slides. If you think of the inordinate amount of time people spend on PowerPoint to make a perfect presentation to leadership, I think those days are gone.”
Further, how pharma conducts business will likely change as well, according to Miller.
“We don’t even operate with a strict budget anymore; we tend to take a three-year horizon, and the view is that long gone is the sandbagging negotiation on your budget,” he said. “Now you can achieve 110, but you asked for 90, and then everyone gets the bonus, as they’re trying to rip the lid off and have more bold ambition and objectives. I think that’s the biggest change that we will see.”
Further reading: According to Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks, the pandemic has provided an opportunity to reset the industry’s reputation. Article here.
YOUR HEALTHBIZ WEEK 06/29/21
Biogen Inc. and Eisai Co Ltd. are working to speed up the completion of a confirmatory trial of their Alzheimer's treatment, Aduhelm, Reuters reports. Aduhelm was recently given accelerated approval by the U.S. FDA. Aduhelm has faced criticism over pricing and whether the clinical data were strong enough to support the approval.
The U.S. FDA has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to Eli Lilly’s antibody therapy, donanemab for Alzheimer’s disease. Lilly said it would file a marketing application for the treatment under the FDA’s accelerated approval pathway. The FDA granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for donanemab based on data from the Phase II TRAILBLAZER-ALZ study. The randomized, multi-center trial evaluated the safety and efficacy of the antibody agent in patients with early and symptomatic AD.
According to a Reuters report, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Eisai Co. have agreed to a deal worth up to US$3.10 billion to jointly develop and market the experimental cancer treatment, MORAb-202. The two drugmakers will jointly develop and market MORAb-202, in Asia, Europe, the United States and Canada. MORAb-202 is being developed for the treatment of solid tumours, including ovarian, lung and breast cancers and is in the early stage of development.
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 inspire others.
More than 100 honourees have been selected during the past 18 years. In the selection committee's view, 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 Honourees.
2011 Inductee
Dan Léger
Lundbeck Canada
Montreal
Editor’s note: Dan left Lundbeck Canada in February 2020. He is currently the Senior Global Marketing Manager, Cell & Gene Therapy at Charles River Laboratories.
A career as a journalist was Dan Léger’s dream, but that dream was not as fulfilling as he had imagined. “I realized my dream right out of university and got a job in a national newsroom,” remembers Léger, who took on the role of Director of Marketing at Lundbeck Canada Inc. in January 2008. “I realized that everything I thought I wanted was not turning out to be what I wanted.”
It was perhaps ironic that while an undergraduate at Carleton University in Ottawa, Léger worked as a page in the House of Commons when Bill C-91, legislation to extend patent protection to brand-name pharmaceutical products, was being debated. “Even before I knew it, I was getting an inside look at the pharmaceutical industry,” says Léger.
A fellow classmate from Carleton informed him of openings at STA Healthcare Communications in Montreal.
“I told him that I did not know anything about medicine,” says Léger, who was offered a job as a medical writer and editor in 1996. “They told me they need good editors who will learn medicine along the way.”
Léger was tasked with editing doctors’ manuscripts, writing manuscripts for doctors, and developing continuing health education projects for various brand-name products. “You name the product that was being launched, and I was able to work on it in some way, shape, or form,” says Léger.
Meeting with clients and product managers at pharmaceutical firms made Léger ponder a future working directly in the industry, but after five years at STA, his next stop was at a healthcare agency. Léger was offered a position as an account executive at Anderson-DDB in Montreal, with a mandate to oversee Norvasc.
“Applying communications via marketing was what I was really meant to do,” he says. “The more time elapsed, the more I realized that is what I really wanted to do.”
After two years as an account executive, Léger received three offers to be a product manager from three different pharmaceutical firms and chose Lundbeck Canada Inc. “I thought Lundbeck offered me the greatest opportunity to realize my potential,” he says.
Léger became one of several product managers involved in the marketing of Celexa. He then launched Cipralex in what he described as a flurry of bad conditions, such as the introduction of the Common Drug Review, negative press about antidepressant medications, and the Vioxx scare that villainized the pharmaceutical industry.
“It was the perfect storm of conditions, and we launched right in the face of that wave,” says Léger, recalling the launch in 2005. “We needed to think differently about how we would sell an antidepressant in Canada.
The “a-ha” moment occurred when Léger saw a newspaper headline that indicated most Canadians diagnosed with depression were in the workforce. “Depression is a working person’s disease,” he says. “The goal of treatment is not only the remission of symptoms but restoration of function in the acute phase and maintenance of function in the long-term.” Six years later, Cipralex was the fastest growing branded product in Canada among the top 100 at the beginning of 2010, according to IMS Health.
The future is bright if the pharma industry does not work from a position of self-interest, he says.
“You will not succeed if you’re self-serving,” says Léger. “It is not all about the product. You have to find a way to help Canadians through medicine.”
A NEW PODCAST
“NPC Podcast Presents: Next in Pharma” is available now. The first episode, “AI-Powered Analytics,” is hosted by Michael Cloutier. Mike’s guests are Martin Booth, Director of Analytics and Data Excellence at AstraZeneca; Omer Ariburnu, Affiliate Head of Customer Excellence and Operations at Biogen; and Shawna Boynton, Omnichannel Marketing Manager at Novo Nordisk. “NPC Podcast Presents: Next in Pharma” is presented in co-operation with our friends at ODAIA.ai
NEXT WEEK
The 07/06 edition of NPC Healthbiz Weekly will feature Brian Heath, Vice President and General Manager of Amgen, on building resilient healthcare systems in a post-crisis era. 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 in July.