This episode is in partnership with MIT Sloan Healthcare and BioInnovations Conference (http://www.sloan-hbc.mit.edu/home-2023) , an event that brings the healthcare ecosystem together. We sat with Andy Plump, President of R&D and Board Member at Takeda, and discussed his personal story, his leadership beliefs, and the “Challenges in Scaling Biotech Innovation” the topic of his panel at the conference. Hear his thoughts on the current and next decades of innovation, “will it be the decades of Life Science or Computer Science?” Most importantly, Andy leaves us with a message of hope. Every dark period in history anchored on the triad of war, pandemic, and social injustice has ended with greatness through science… We are on the edge of this, again, now.
“This decade will be remembered for Life Science or Computer Science… The potential is limitless.”
MEET OUR GUEST Andrew Plump (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-plump/) President of Research & Development and Board Member at Takeda.
Dr. Andrew Plum is the President of Research & Development and a Board Member at Takeda (https://www.takeda.com/about/leadership/andrew-plump/) . His career spans nearly 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry and academia.
Andy has been recognized for his contributions to the healthcare industry, education, and the arts. He serves on several non-profit boards including the Board of Trustees for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Sarnoff Cardiovascular Research Foundation, the Biomedical Science Careers Program, and as Chairman of the Board of Directors for the PhRMA Foundation.
Prior to Takeda, Andrew served as head of Research & Translational Medicine, deputy to the president of R&D at Sanofi, based in Paris, France. Prior to Sanofi, he served as worldwide cardiovascular research head at Merck.
Andy received his M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), his Ph.D. in cardiovascular genetics, and his B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in medical genetics at UCSF.
Hello leaders of the word welcome to spread love and organizations podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care servant leadership and love I’m nii you’re host for this special episode in partnership with MIT slan Healthcare and bioin ation conference an
Event that brings the healthcare ecosystem together I’m joined today by Andrew Plum president of research and development and board member at taeda his career spans nearly 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry and Academia Andy has been recognized for his contributions to the healthcare industry education and the Arts he serves on
Several nonprofit boards including the Board of Trustees for the Boston Symphony Orchestra the S of cardiovascular research Foundation the biomedical science careers program and as chairman of the board of directors for the Pharma Foundation prior to Takeda enzi served as head of research and translational medicine Deputy to the
President of R&D at sopi based in Paris France prior to sopi he served as worldwide cardiovascular research head at Merk and he received his MD from the University of California San Francisco UCSF his PhD in cardiovascular genetics and his BS from MIT he completed a res prescy in Internal Medicine and
Fellowship in medical genetics at UCSF Andy I am humbled to have you with me today hello nii and thank you thank you so much for the privilege of joining you on this terrific podcast before we dig in challenges in scaling biotech Innovation the topic of your panel at
Shbc I am eager to hear more about your personal story really what brought you to Medicine then Pharma and now leading rnz well it it just so happens the timing for that question is impeccable because this past Sunday I gave a talk something I’ve never done before it was
Actually a mentorship talk to a group of emerging diverse uh scientists and clinicians and this organization called The biomedic Sciences career program or BCP I think you mentioned I sit on the board of this this organization and it’s an organization that’s existed for 30 years has about 10,000 members
Incredible individuals many come from underprivileged or marginalized Beginnings so motivated to to grow and to make the world a better place in in life sciences so I had a chance to give a talk and I was able to unpack some of my beginnings and so so I thought
Through this and this is audio so nobody can see the picture but I had a slide that had a picture of me in my 1970s plaid bath you know bath bathrobe um with my mom at the age of four and then a picture of me in a tuxedo actually as
I was getting married in 1992 with my dad and you know and I think back it’s it’s in large measure to my parents and to my my upbringing when I start to think about my journey um and there’s one piece of my childhood that was enabled so wonderfully by my mom and my
Dad that has really carried me through these many years and that’s curiosity I’ve always been so interested and curious in what’s happening around me and the two stories I told at the conference which I’ll share with your your audience nii are my mom at the time that I was four years
Old maybe three three and a half with in that bathrobe I was the third born we ultimately had five of us in the family but the Twins were you know unexpected and so I was meant to be the youngest child of am I had older brother and
Sister who were five or six years older than me in school and I would just you know follow my mom around everywhere and ask her question after question after question and finally she looked at me one day and she said Andrew it’s time for you to go to
School and the other question that you know resonated was I told took my dad aside very earnestly one day and I said dad you know if you could bring the person who had all the answers in the world and give me that person for a full
Weekend still wouldn’t be able to ask as many questions as I have so Curiosity has been what has propelled me well thank you for for sharing Andy and I I love how you’re bringing it with the fact of being curious and you know I was thinking as you were saying this how
Many times we actually as parents make this mistake of stopping our kids from asking so many questions so now if we go into really the challenges in scaling biotech Innovation and what you shared during the conference itself I would love first your view on the most exciting current
Innovations in biotac how do you define those how do you look at those personally well I I we’re in a golden era of healthcare and if we get it right by the end of this Century we we can have a a therapy maybe even a cure for
Every disease that’s that’s known to man there’s no question we have all of the tools and foundationally they’re they’re the three pillars that allow us to be so bold and aspirational are human genetics we learn so much by dissecting the human genome in terms of Target identification in terms
Of sematic mutations that affect cancers that’s one the second is tried and true mechanistic biology that typically occurs in academic Laboratories so thinking through what it takes to generate a hypothesis and test that hypothesis and unraveling biology our ability to do that at scale it’s and it’s not systems
Biology typically it’s an individual student or postto really thinking through the details of of a problem that’s the that’s the academic medical system that exists today and then thirdly this explosion of modalities that has come about over in princip in particular over the last decade when I
Started in this industry we had 90 plus percent of the molecules and pipelines were synthetic small molecules natural products vaccines right now if you look at the aggregate pipeline across our industry those three form the minority we have recommon and proteins we have genetic therapies of multiple flavors and we have cell
Therapies and so our ability to put these three together allows us to have the courage and boldness to think that we can tackle any disease and in fact the last 10 to 15 years have has told us that that with this toolbox we can we have the potential to
Do anything anything that that that we can now there are forces that work against us you know one one are intrinsic forces to our industry and it’s greed and avarice and and behaviors that damage our reputation because we’re a highly regulated industry what you know what we do really matters not just
It’s not just a business there there it’s there’s a right to health care and when we when we’re egregious in our pricing when we um fail to abide by the liance and quality codes that countries ask us to abide by we’re damaging ourselves that’s our own intrinsic potential roadblock but extrinsically
There are many roadblocks and we’re seeing this with regulatory agencies which which move up and down in terms of their conservatism and we’re moving today towards a much more conservative regulatory landscape particularly in the US um there’s reimbursement policies you know especially in in Europe it’s it’s very hard to demonstrate in diseases
Where you have existing therapy um that you have a better therapy that that deserves reimbursement because because it’s impossible to show oftentimes in head-to-head studies um that you are better and that’s what’s being asked of us and so so there’s there’s there’s this um the this tunnel vision I think
That’s happening we saw this with Ira was having conversations recently the inflation reduction act there are elements of Ira that make a lot of sense we need to reduce costs in the US for patients but there are a lot of elements in the ira that will squash Innovation
So huge potential but also uh huge huge headwinds so let’s double click and I love how you framed it and so agree with you on intrinsic roadblock that that we bring and those external ones and when we think about those Innovation biotech we’re frequently think about those nent
Bioxs those startups who are trying to nail down one of like the most challenging targets the most challenging technology science when you think of those where do you see the biggest challenge for starting a biotech like if I want to think from those startups what are the main challenges for them in
2023 after probably a boom in the last decade how do you see those these days well it it’s it’s a terrible time right now for for the biotech uh ecosystem and the the the challenge is getting funded right now there’s there’s there’s still a tremendous amount of venture capital
Available but there’s a there’s a fear a bit in in the market and so there’s been much less investment in new ideas now than there have been in the past I you know we’ve seen Cycles like this before so I’m I’m convinced that we’ll cycle
Out of this and that we’ll end up in a better place I don’t know if that’s going to take a year three years or five years but we’re in a particularly depressed market so funding for bi biot taxes is taking a really big head but I think there’s a more fundamental concern
Which gets back to my comments earlier around some of the extrinsic headwinds that we’re facing it’s just you know when you’re when you’re dealing with more conservative Regulatory Agencies more challenging reimbursement um environments when you have the country the country in the US which is responsible for 50% of reimbursement on
Industry starting to really limit um access and and price um that’s a problem for biotech because it all you know it all Cascades downward and the starting point for most Innovation is biotap you know two-thirds of what any Pharma company will ultimately bring to a patient in the marketplace starts in
Laboratories outside of our own it starts in biotechnology Laboratories and academic Laboratories and so if we’re not funding that and supporting that early Innovation it’s going to greatly damage access for patient so I’d love to click on the access piece because as you said breakthrough Innovations uh and
Really in a global environment that is becoming more and more challenging to bring those Innovations not only from an R&D standpoint but once they are in the market to patients across the globe how how do you think about this in a global aspect again of those breakthrough
Innovations for all patients who need it yeah and maybe I’m not using the word correctly because what I’m I’m talking about for biotex it’s not about access it’s about actually being able to make medicine having it approved and having it reimbursed at some level and that doesn’t that’s not you’re right that’s
Not the same as access and in fact when I think of access I think about it in the context that you’re articulating which is access to the seven plus billion people across the globe but even within the United States you know where you have 300 plus million individuals and you have marginalized and
Underprivileged groups who have poor access to many of these medicines and we saw that in during the covid pandemic when you looked at the groups that were most affected by this lethal virus it ended up that many of the more marginalized socioeconomically depressed groups were much more affected so we
Have an issue here in the United States that we have to get on top of of course the issue on the global scale is is much larger you know many companies have Global pharmaceutical companies will have marketing presences in 30 or 50 or 75 countries across the world and so
More than 50% of countries are not actually represented by commercial organizations and that’s a real problem it means we’re not developing studying our medicines in those other countries and we’re not bringing our medicines to those countries in in a systematic way um I think I think we we’re up and down
In in Access you know one area where we’re we’re driving immense accesses in China you know where you have you know 1 Point what is it 1.4 billion people which which means 1.4 billion potential patients and you know what what the Chinese the CDE the cfda the regulatory
Equivalents in China have done over the last eight or nine years China has made it a mandate that we China wants Innovative medicines available for its population and so they’ve overnight it feels like they’ve changed the regulatory policies to enable development in China and they they’re stimulating Innovation so an example the CD
The one of the the FDA equivalent essentially had listed a couple of years ago what they consider the top 50 most Innovative medicines and they said we know we we want you to be developing your medicines in Chinese patients so we understand how those medicines perform
In P in patients in China but for those 50 let’s just register them and then you commit to a phase four study to study them after they register because they’re just too important not to be available to patients so that’s a great example of a business model for companies companies
Stepping in and a government really opening up the for for those individuals but we have a long way to go I agree we have a long long way to go to to achieve access at the scale that each of us would would truly want now thanks for this example it really shows this
Collaboration of stakeholders at the end and if we really can work as partners and the you know every time I think of this I think of Co and how we developed and brought Innovation with speed like vaccines treatments Etc because we were all together as key stakeholders of the
Healthare for the patients we serve keeping the patient at the heart you talked about funding I would love to hear your view about not only funding for biotech which is a obviously one of the biggest challenges but what is the role of leadership in building up and scaling
Biotex leadership in in what context within the companies themselves yes yeah well I mean everything is about leadership you know I and and I can take I’m asking for you to qualify the question because I could take it in so many different directions you know I
Think it starts with policy and how we as we’re talking about how how how let’s just focus on the United States how we create policy regulatory policy reimbursement policy pricing policy that’s leadership and there’s a trickle down effect if we’re too shortsighted about some of the decisions we’re making
I mentioned the inflation reduction act where there are many Provisions that are observed and will destroy Innovation I’ll give you one example by the way which is that there are Provisions in Ira which allow the CMS which is the kind of federal agency that manages pricing for Medicare and Medicaid
Products there are Provisions that allow CMS to step in and to negotiate price with a sponsor that’s okay and as long as that’s managed correctly but that timeline for when CMS can step in and negotiate is different if you’re a recombinant protein or a small molecule if you’re a recombinant protein they can
Step in at 13 years and if you’re a small molecule they can step in at nine years why it makes absolutely no sense in fact it should be the opposite because it’s much harder to make a generic version of a recombinant protein than of a small molecule but the reality
Is both can be transformative in terms of their potential for patients that’s an absence of leadership that’s there’s there’s something behind that I’ve actually spoken with many former former officials in the in the government several X FDA Chiefs to try to understand where that’s coming from and
The only answer I can get is there’s it’s politicized in some way in ways that I can’t even begin to to understand that’s poor leadership so leadership is important at our levels there’s there’s also there’s also something about our business which I find quite interesting which is that our business is somewhat
Stochastic right you can be um you can have poorly run organizations and toxic organizations that can do quite well for a short period of time and maybe in your career you’ve been in bad situations that you were just not happy as an employee or where a company has done
Well it’s actually very hard in most sectors to sustain yourself for any period of time when you have a toxic culture um in our industry you’ve have many companies that have been able to do that now of course it’s it it has a a Runway if you have a toxic culture bad
Leadership you will you will Peter out but in our industry because our life cycles are 10 to 15 years if you have a k truda and you’re a Merc I’m not suggesting that Merc is a toxic ulture but that can Propel you for you know 10
To 15 years and give you an immense amount of funding for that period of time and so you do have organizations where you have bad leadership where you you see stochastic breakthroughs oftentimes they’re not because of Brilliance they’re because of luck and that happens in our business and you can
Sustain those environments but I’m not advocating for that but really if you want to be successful in the comp in the environments that we work within where the the competition for talent is so intense especially in your area Nai and oncology where everybody is an oncology
And there’s such a talent dir um if you’re not leading if you’re not creating cultures that are positive cultures you’re going to you’re going to lose there there’s a great line that now I think every biotech CEO uses which is excuse my language but the no culture right but and actually that was
Something that 10 years ago I don’t think anybody was really that concerned about because everybody was so caught up in that stochastic luck process but now everybody tries to create a culture that’s strong and and Leadership is the foundation of all of that this is a great segue to the next
Section where I would give you one word and I would love your reaction to it so the first word is leadership necessary so did you want a one word reaction or did you want a uh you can give more well I mean I’m just shaking my head because it’s very
Interesting I’ll take in aside here because you’re you’re you you’re kind of um rattling you’re Shake you’re shaking me you’re you’re hitting a cord so so one one of the things that struck me in R&D in our industry is that oftentimes the leadership within R&D organizations
Is more variable than what you see in in other parts of of our organizations you know for example to be a commercial leader you obviously need to be smart you need to be accomplished but you know you you’re often selected more on your leadership whereas in R&D organizations
Especially in in highly technical areas you know where the pool size of individuals gets to be quite small um where accomplishments and intellect and Technical expertise tend to be valued more greatly let’s say than leadership you’re often seeing organizations promote individuals based on their technical me merits intelect accomplishments rather than their
Leadership and so many R&D organizations are mismanaged with with poor leaders and and actually it kind of makes some sense because you’re you’re you’re dealing with people who have trained as Physicians who’ve trained as scientists and as engineers and have’ never really thought about leadership so I think it’s
ABS it’s an absolute necessity and one of the things I’ve done you know I we’ll see if this will work out into it because because our we’re judged over a long period of time is I’ve first and foremost emphasized character and Leadership you know technical Excellence expertise is a necessity but you can’t
Be on my team unless you have strong leadership chops and strong character the next word is Health Equity a problem I mean you know it’s it’s a challenge and actually um we come out of covid and there’s the you know some of the Silver Linings that come out of the
Pandemic are a recognition of the inequities that exist in society and what what makees what’s quizzical about my saying that is why should that be something that we figure out in 2022 and 2023 this has existed for decades and centuries um you know hopefully these realizations will stti
And something that I’ve really um become more and more aware of and more cognizant of my my privileges as a white male and my responsibilities in terms of being an ally and stepping up um we have a long way to go and you know fundamentally it starts within R&D certainly within our institutions
Ensuring that we’re creating cultures that are diverse Equitable and inclusive and all three of them not just diversifying our our population but ensuring that we’re listening and being truly inclusive that’s really requires learning education and growth um but then as we start to think about the patients that we’re aiming to serve you
Know if we’re not studying the effects of our experimental Therapies in diverse patient populations we’re doing an injustice to to uh to those patients and and not contributing to Health Equity and so it starts early on in the process and when you look at um when you look at
Industry across industry you look at clinical trials they’re still nowhere near where they need to be I think we’re on the right track you have guidances coming out of you know FDA for example and other organizations so I think we’re all moving in the right direction but
Something we all have to own and I still don’t see that ownership as uh uniform as as what it needs to be even within my organization where we have you know there’s a huge foundation and focus on Health Equity and clinical trial diversity I sometimes listen in meetings
And you know it’s not oftentimes the first thing that are that’s brought up when we’re talking about a program I think if we’re really Equitable really thinking about Health Equity and access it would be the first or second thing that comes up in almost every conversation and I just don’t don’t see
That we’re not quite there yet I love it I can’t agree more with you on diversity not only it starts internally as you said this is parts we can influence immediately but definitely clinical trial diversity is a big is a big topic we need to be focused on As
Leaders on this point I was I mentioned this talk I gave on Sunday which is a very powerful talk for me took a lot of time a lot of preparation and I thought a lot about it was not an easy talk to give but my second slide after my title
Was two people sitting on a couch and in between the two people was a big elephant and I said here the elephant in the room is here I am a 50s something white male talking to a group of 500 diverse aspiring um Healthcare and life scientists you know but but the elephant
So what can I tell you how can my experience help help you and so my my my theme was that there are there’s a perspective that I have that that can be helpful to anybody and there’s also a recognition that I have that we all we all have our identity and our identities
Will shape our our lives and our career and for some of us we’re able to be more opportunistic because of the color of our skin and our gender perhaps and for others we just need to be more purposeful but it’s not it’s not incumbent on just the diverse or marginalized individual it’s incumbent
On all of us to step up and to ensure that we’re helping create more more equity in the world and that’s where I think my you know my responsibility is as someone who’s actually experienced so much watch and through a life of white privilege the third one is Symphony
Orchestra it’s I mean the Boston Symphony Orchestra even more specific yes are you are you musical Nai are you musical yourself yeah yeah guitar and piano well so okay here’s the story I went to school uh pointing this way because massav is right behind me and
MIT is right off the road I went to school at MIT as an undergraduate and I’m not particularly musical but when I came to Boston it was a town I mean it’s it’s changed so much it was a town with MIT and Harvard and then townies you
Know and it had a very unique kind of small town culture but there was one institution that was that put it on a world scale and that was the Boston Symphony Orchestra and so I I loved the institution um six or seven years ago uh we we actually at decada became sponsors
Of BSL because we were trying to we were trying to imprint ourselves in in Boston and nobody knew who we were right and it was trying to hire and build an R&D organization here and I would talk to people and they would say Takata the airbag company like no no Tada so we
Needed to to to to Market ourselves a little bit and so we had two opportunities the Red Sox the Boston Red Sox or the Boston Symphony Orchestra I’m a New Yorker I could never I could never promote and I’m a big fan of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and so we became involved and
Then I got involved in some fundraising and some development efforts and I realized how how distanced the life science community in Boston was from this iconic institution so you had to me now today in Boston there are two defining elements there’s BSO and there’s the life science community and
So it felt like a match made in heaven and I was able to help to catalyze um that that match you know a couple years ago they asked if I would be willing to step up and serve on the board of trust trustees which of course I I I’m more than
Willing and it’s been an amazing experience and the last one is spread love in organizations well I’m looking at you and I’m you know I didn’t I have to be very honest it’s one of my achilles heels I didn’t know about your podcast or your your group until I was a until I
I met your colleague uh what was her name z z Zena Zena Zena yeah Z after my after the panel at MIT she came up to me and we talked for a few minutes and she asked if I would do this and she told me
A little bit about it and um you know I was more than more than pleased to step in and I love what you’re what you’re doing and reaching in and helping the our community grow and asking the kinds of questions and that many people don’t ask I never get asked about the Boston
Symphony Orchestra I get asked about leadership but it’s not the most common thing I get asked about and so the way you’re approaching this and the way you’re opening up our community to Unique perspectives perhaps from standard people like like me I think it’s really terrific so thank you for doing this and
Congratulations oh thank you Andie that means that means a lot any final words of wisdom for healthcare leaders around the words well I’m an internal Optimist you know and I I I have to be in our business as you know nii because a lot of what we do doesn’t work and so
You need to really be optimistic um and you know as I said earlier I think we’re in the Golden Era of of healthc care and I I I I I don’t know if our if these decades will be remembered for life science or for computer science because both are making
Huge headways um okay but I’ll I’ll tell you a bit of an analogy so in in in history there are dark periods of time that are often characterized by War by pandemic and by social injustice and unrest and we’re just coming out of one with covid if you
Look back in history there are many very similar examples that are characterized by that same Triad of of Darkness always these dark periods are bookended by greatness and typically that greatness is scientific or technological if you go back to the 19 early 1900s with Albert Einstein for example World War I and
Then some of the work that came after World War I with Sir Arthur Eddie um you go back to the 1960s with the difficult period bookmarked by greatness in our in space exploration and if you come to today we’ve established a left Benchmark in my mind of this dark period
And it was the work that came out of Jennifer dowa and Emanuel shener with crisper what we can do in terms of genetic manipulation is just amazing and the potential for disease is just incredible I don’t know what the right bookmark of this dark period will be but
The people who are listen listening to your podcast we’ll be defining it and I have to imagine it’s going to relate back somehow to our ability to manipulate our genome and create Good well thank you so much and it’s such a great way to finish up with an opening on Hope for after all the darkness as you said with the Triads we’ve been going through thank you so much again for being with me today it’s been a privilege thank you thank you very much
Naji thank you all for listening to spread love and organizations podcast more episodes summarizing the mit’s loan Healthcare and bioinnovations Conference are available on spreadlove i.com or on your preferred streaming app P spread love in organizations wherever you listen to podcast and spread the word around you to inspire others and amplify
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