How pharma and biotech leaders can navigate today’s challenging landscape—focusing on revamped approaches in business operations, talent strategy and development, and more to meet the evolving demands.
The biopharmaceutical industry is facing a wave of significant transitions, not least due to recent layoffs and strategic shifts announced by several Big Pharma companies. As these organizations streamline operations and sharpen focus on key growth areas, leaders must adapt swiftly to manage change effectively.
For insight on the adjustments necessary to navigate this landscape—across areas such as product launch and management, talent development, and M&A and partnering—Pharm Exec recently chatted with Ignacio Vaccaro, PhD, senior director and head of the strategic alignment and business acumen practice at BTS, and his colleague, Will Heard, PhD, a director in the BTS London office.
Ignacio has held senior positions in industry. He holds a PhD in strategic management from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Heard, who joined BTS as a business analyst in 2015, holds a PhD in cell and disease biology.
PE: The transition taking place in the industry is due to a variety of factors, such as new legislation (IRA), a changing pricing/reimbursement climate, looming patent cliffs, and various geopolitical and macroeconomic drivers. How much are companies weighing these influences in their short and long-term strategic planning—whether involving commercial, business, R&D, etc.?
Heard: There are a few factors coming to a head, including:
Vaccaro: In addition to Will’s points, in adjacent industries, such as medtech, there is huge focus on some of these factors:
All of these factors are driving strategy and planning cycles and demanding a balancing act between delivering today and planning for disruptive technologies.
PE: What approaches are Big Pharma companies—some dealing with layoffs, restructurings, pipeline shifts, etc.—exploring these days to streamline operations and help adapt to and manage these challenges?
Heard: We are now seeing a big focus on streamlining operations and R&D. Big Pharma companies are getting really clear on what they are doing, and what they are not doing, whether that is doubling down on an area of existing strength, or focusing on a new strategic direction, or determining which markets to focus on (US/China/EU5, and the rest can fend for themselves).
The focus across the business are:
PE: Juggling staff loss and shifts in program focus, is there added importance on revamping strategies in talent management and leadership development—knowing it’s more critical to get those decisions right?
Heard: Absolutely. The key is to have the right skills for the future. Lots of companies are benchmarking against competitors for what a good GM looks like, for example. However, those are the skills we used to need, which are now less relevant.
We are seeing a lot of roles evolving rapidly:
It even goes down to the building blocks of performance management. A lot of organizations are coming to us looking to have more robust performance management processes and seeing that the culture may also be a challenge—do we have culture that allows frank and open feedback conversations?
Vaccaro: We’re seeing an added emphasis on:
PE: Of course, many Big Pharmas have considerable cash on hand and are enjoying strong or at least stable growth. But, that said, are we in a new era now where large pharma companies are more discerning and calculated in how they allocate their investing dollars, including pursuits around M&A, partnering, and licensing?
Vaccaro: Capital and resource allocation are becoming more critical across the board and bringing into focus the need to accelerate capability development in different areas:
Heard: They have to be [more discerning]. Now is the time for Big Pharma leaders to get really clear on where they play and where they don’t.
Innovative clinical technology platforms—cell and gene therapy, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), and digital technologies—have been among the five highest-value areas for alliance investment since 2020.
For Big Pharma leaders, the challenge is often identifying the technology or platform they need, but they know they don’t have the culture to make it thrive. A good example are the recent spinoffs of consumer health divisions from GSK and Pfizer, where those organizations struggled to create value with the culture of a Big Pharma organization.
We are often seeing companies expressing a value like “follow the science” or something along those lines, meaning it’s important to avoid thinking from a therapeutic area silo. Instead they are looking to see if their asset would create more value in another therapy area and follow that, rather than look from traditional silos.
PE: In turn, how are you seeing the trajectory of the biotech business the rest of the year and beyond? Value from differentiation and new innovation in treatment and technology seem to be king—what are the skills biotech leaders need today to seize on those opportunities?
Heard: Firstly, it’s an enterprise perspective and leaders’ ability to see how we all work together to create value for the patient and our other stakeholders. Pharma companies need deep expertise, but this has created some siloes in organizations, and if those siloes are too intrenched, companies will fall behind. The really successful organizations are experimenting in new therapy areas/models/ways to market that require an unprecedented level of cross-functional collaboration.
Secondly, is the capability for and discipline around scenario planning and rehearsal. Whether it is in service of recruiting for the future or delivering launch excellence, using tools like simulation are key to practice future scenarios and situations, so when it happens, the leadership team is ready to act fast.
Third, is digital savviness, AI, and predictive analytics. For biotech industry leaders, it is not necessarily needing to know exactly how they work, but needing to understand the business applications of the technology and how it will dramatically change the way the industry works.
As an example, some of my peers took five years while earning their PhDs to define the structures of some proteins. Now it can be done in silico to a huge degree of accuracy. I don’t think that will be the last evolution from patient enrollment to drug discovery. It’s almost at a point where imagination is the limiting factor, rather than the technology.
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