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LIFESCIENCELEADER.COM THE CMO LEADERSHIP AWARDS 2017 11 ment function basically from zero," she says. "I was mostly on the side pushing for innovations when I was at Genentech, and I can see that the equation doesn't change that much. You have to understand what the positive impact of innovations are to the sponsor's business." Her prime example is a first assumption by large molecule tially modernized process, in which you could implement innova- tion, into the existing equipment and technology in the plant. So not only do we have a problem innovating on products that are already commercially available, we have one innovating on prod- ucts throughout the entire pipeline. "It becomes self-sustaining," Larson laments. "The only way this gets altered is when you have something truly disruptive — like cell- based therapies — where you are forced to do things completely different." Waiting for these innovation disrup- tions can mean patients, pricing, and products are slow to benefit from any modernization. Nevertheless, Larson believes there are still incremental ways to modernize and innovate in the sup- ply chain. "For example, I've had great experiences collaborating on process analytical technology [PAT] via cross- industry groups. I've also worked with these groups on technology-development road maps for biologics manufacturing. Cross-industry technical experts will come together for a mutual goal, and I witnessed the collaboration among users of emerging single-use technologies. There's a big benefit to standardizing sin- gle-use equipment options, similar to the benefit we all get in our daily lives from using standard USB connectors for our communication devices. The fundamen- tal question always has been: How can we together advance meaningful innovation into our industry, and learn to help the suppliers help us in the effort?" A good place to start might be ensur- ing service providers understand the meaning of "meaningful" to their cus- tomers, which brings us back to speed to market and understanding real business drivers. Change For The Good Or No Change AT All Unfortunately, says Larson, there can be a disconnect between drug developers and their external partners about what is truly beneficial in an overall business sense. "I have this great opportunity at Achaogen to build an antibody develop-