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Industry Leader 3 Keys To Successful Life Sciences Partnerships a company is "virtual," "strategically out- sourcing," or "capital light," its success is dependent on great partners. At Epizyme, we believe fostering and establishing long- term partnerships is essential to our goal of building a great company committed to discovering personalized treatments for patients with genetically defined cancers. As a venture-backed, private company, we have a mixed model of outsourcing where activities are developed internally, with the intention to find a partner orga- nization that can execute those activities superbly and with precision. We believe that while successful execution may occur with many companies by setting clear goals and priorities, ensuring follow through, insisting on realistic deliverables, and rewarding the doers, there are very few companies where the journey togeth- er is a journey of mutual progress toward building greatness. L 52 Building a great company requires a commitment to core values, and great partnerships succeed when all parties share core values. Jim Collins and Jerry Poras highlighted in their 1994 classic book Built To Last that visionary and successful companies were committed to "essential and enduring tenets" upon which the success of the company was built, even though those core values may sound nothing alike from company to company. However, there are common themes in all the tenets of the companies highlighted in Built to Last. Those themes are commitments to superior quality, unwavering reliability, and constant com- munication. The CMO Leadership Awards 2012 ife science compa- nies like Epizyme increasingly rely on contract research and manufacturing orga- nizations to achieve their goals. Whether In the world of life sciences, where the output is improved quality or quantity of human life, those themes take on an even greater importance. Quality, reli- ability, and communication have to occur in every business relationship in the life sciences arena in order for both the client and the CMO to achieve their common goal of greatness, and for the suffering of human beings to be relieved. "QUALITY IS NOT AN ACT, IT IS A HABIT." — ARISTOTLE It takes energy to act. Habits occur almost without thinking. In a CMO, quality has to be so engrained that the company lives quality. The leaders of a company must set the standard for quality and habitu- ally expect quality, not tolerating a "good enough" attitude. In some cases, the quality of the output is binary: the compound is made or not made, speci- fications are met or not met. In many cases, however, quality is more difficult to judge. For example, how many data tables should be checked to accept the entirety of a data set and the validity of the conclusions? We assess quality from the first inter- actions with a company. Is the corre- spondence free of typographical or grammatical errors? Does the potential partner listen to how your team intro- duces themselves and then address them appropriately? While these things in and of themselves are trivial, they can reflect a company culture that accepts something as "good enough." If quality is a habit in the company, then it will pervade every interaction with the company. Quality assessment continues through contract discussion and negotiations. Do the potential partners listen well, and do edits to contracts reflect the discussions? Are documents prepared accurately? Robert Gould, Ph.D. Robert Gould, Ph.D. is president and CEO of Epizyme, Inc., a privately held biopharma com- pany. He has m ore than 25 years of research and management experience. "A DOUBTFUL FRIEND IS WORSE THAN A CERTAIN ENEMY." — AESOP Reliability and consistency are critical to enjoying the journey together. For an early-stage, privately funded company, the silent sound of time is the silent sound of money moving out the door. We therefore need the confidence from our partners that timelines can be met, and met reliably. Both parties must set realistic expectations for key deliver- ables both in quality and timeliness, but those have to be balanced carefully with the need for speed to move product. "THE SECRET OF WAR LIES IN COMMUNICATION." — NAPOLEON BONAPARTE How does a contract organization balance the drive for speed, set realistic expecta- tions, and assure that quality specifica- tions are clear and can be addressed? The answer is through frequent and regular communications. With the explosion of electronic communication capabilities like Skype, WebEx, or FaceTime, there can be no reason not to have direct and informed communication on the status of projects. Even the five-minute conversa- tion that says "everything is on track" is important. Never assume with your part- ner that no news is good news. INDUSTRY LEADER