The vision of Life Science Leader is to help facilitate connections and foster collaborations in pharma and med device development to get more life-saving and life-improving therapies to market in an efficient manner. Connect, Collaborate, Contribute
Issue link: https://lifescienceleadermag.epubxp.com/i/320415
EXCLUSIVE LIFE SCIENCE FEATURE leaders LIFESCIENCELEADER.COM JUNE 2014 28 Similarly, he has overseen numerous other deals to bolster its main business units, as exemplified by the Elanco- Novartis arrangement. FOCUS — IN HAND WITH EXPANSION Lechleiter didn't just make promises in 2009; he and his team invested much of their time examining every aspect of the company 's strategy, as well as considering alternative approaches to help the company weather the hard times ahead. As a result, they con- ceived a plan to reorganize the com- pany into five main business units: Bio-Medicines, Diabetes, Emerging Markets, and Oncology, in addition to Elanco. "The main concern for me was focus," he says. "At that time, we had revenues of close to $25 billion, most of it in human health, and most of that in phar- maceuticals, yet we found ourselves in some of these key therapeutic cat- egories competing against very focused competitors — Roche in oncology, Novo-Nordisk in diabetes, and so on. So we formed a Diabetes business unit and an Oncology business unit. The third unit was our Emerging Markets busi- ness. We didn't have enough focus on emerging markets in their own right, but that business now has a seat at the table. "Bio-Medicines is essentially every- thing else; it's actually our largest port- folio, including the men's health prod- ucts and the neuroscience products such as Cialis, Cymbalta, and Strattera [atomoxetine]. It's also responsible for the 'care and feeding' of all of our local operations. Our entire global infra- structure of operations went into the Bio-Medicines unit." "I've got five people running the five businesses," says Lechleiter. "They are all very capable individuals who are not only able to work through a common infrastructure, our global services group, but also tailor their approach to their businesses in ways that best serve their customers' needs. And that's proving out — we're a more competitive company today in diabe- tes and oncology, and we are better IMAGINE A BIG PIE CHART of the chairman, president, and CEO's responsibilities, including the R&D;, commercial, financial, strategic, and organizational areas. Do some areas take more of the leader's time, attention, and resources than others? John Lechleiter's answer, bemused but sanguine, carries a lot of lessons for people at all levels of responsibility in the industry. In the following, he shares some of his management philosophy and how he has dealt with Lilly's patent losses and other setbacks in recent years: "You have to have an overall grasp of the busi- ness as the CEO, but if there's one thing I worry about, and I believe it's a healthy paranoia, it's that my knowledge of what's really going on in the organization is too imperfect. People are predisposed, I think, to telling you good news, but I'd rather hear the bad news — and I'd rather hear it quickly. "Still, you can't be into every detail, and you've got to be very careful if and when you decide to put your finger in the pie and intervene somewhere. You always have to work through people, and that's why I spent so much time and effort selecting a team of great leaders. Only I and our CFO, Derica Rice, were in the top 14 executive positions in the company in 2008. I sometimes hear people say, 'These are the three areas the CEO should focus on,' and I think, 'Really. Okay.' Things come along and you get surprised. You can organize your life so there's a certain routine, and that's important, because it puts discipline in the organization. But then you've got to be ready for the unex- pected — and not just the things that knock you for a punch, but also the unforeseen oppor- tunities that open up. "The most enjoyable part for me is spending time with Lilly people at our sites around the world, and in our labs. I do that to get a sense of what's going on. All this change that I think is happening in the company — is it filtering down, do people get it? Do people understand where we're going? Are they excited about that? You can take surveys and can talk to your team, but you've got to get involved at the ground level sometimes or you get very insulated and isolated. On The Chairman's Watch "Expectations of large companies have changed and grown in recent years. There's a political dynamic to contend with every day, in the United States and globally. Healthcare is much more on the forefront now than it was 30 years ago, because we're all getting older, we're demanding more healthcare, and we're trying to figure out who's going to pay for it and how it will be delivered. I'm happy to be in the middle of that, but we've got to be thoughtful and constructive in how we approach those things. So I spend a lot of time speaking exter- nally, meeting with different interest groups and investors to make sure that I'm in the thick of many of those currents that will impact our business ultimately. "A personal touch can be even more important when things aren't going right. In August 2010, we had a couple of negative patent rulings and lost our oral gamma secretase inhibitor for Alzheimer's, semagacestat. It was on a Wednesday or Thursday; that Saturday I was home and a little bit down about it, and I said to my wife, 'I thought our employees were probably a bit discouraged.' She said, 'Why don't you take out a newspaper ad?' because we have so many employees concentrated in central Indiana. So we put together a one-page ad for the Indianapolis Star, with the headline, 'The Path We Have Chosen.' I just looked at it again, after four years, and it's great. It basically said: Look, we've had some setbacks and this is tough for us, but our mission is unchanged. What we do is discover and develop life-sav- ing medicines. There are some huge medical needs, and we have a very good chance of mak- ing a difference, and that's what we're going to keep on doing. "We had a strategy: Invest in innovation, cut our costs and improve productivity, make the most of the products on the market, expand Elanco, and so on. We stuck to that, but it seemed everybody out there at one point or another was saying we should do something else. We should merge, we should spin Elanco off, slash R&D;, break up the business, every- thing under the sun. As CEO, you can't be blind, you've got to listen, but you've also got to have the courage of your convictions. We weren't rolling the dice; we really believed in what we were doing. We just knew it would take time. We were trying to be patient with ourselves and asking others to be patient with us. And I believe that strategy is going to prove out." LILLY NAVIGATES THE REALITIES OF INNOVATION By W. Koberstein F e a t u r e - C o v e r - L i l l y . i n d d 5 Feature-Cover-Lilly.indd 5 5 / 2 1 / 2 0 1 4 1 2 : 1 6 : 3 0 P M 5/21/2014 12:16:30 PM