IF THERE'S AN ELEMENT OF FAILURE, TRY TO FAIL FAST

The over $22 billion pharma major AstraZeneca has seen one of the most remarkable turnarounds in drug research history. With 144 projects in clinical trials and 16 new molecular entities in final Phase-III trials, it boasts of a new drugs pipeline bigger than that of rivals Pfizer and Roche – both more than double its size in revenue. Yet, the world’s 14th largest pharma company faces multiple challenges, two of which are Brexit and the US-China trade war (18% revenue from China and 30% from the US). Business Today’s Rajeev Dubey caught up with AstraZeneca’s Non-executive Chairman, Leif Johansson, during his recent India visit. Edited Excerpts:

- Rajeev Dubey

AstraZeneca’s research turnaround is unique in global drug history. What is the secret sauce?

I became chairman in 2012 and decided to replenish the pipeline. So, we hired Pascal Soriot (the company’s Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer). He and his team have done a much better evaluation of the projects we have. He not only brought discipline in the process, but also sharp decision making, and unsentimental decisions on which projects have to go. If there’s an element of risk or failure, then try to fail fast. By doing that, you free up resources for projects that we are standing behind.

In 2012, we spent almost 90 per cent of our R&D internally. Now, overall, what we are doing in our R&D with small or medium-sized companies, if you add transactions by molecules selling projects ( joint molecule development projects), then the number is probably 50-50. So, a combination of much better decision-making and opening up has meant four-fold productivity of new drug discovery. That is the remarkable effect Pascal Soriot’s team has had on the group.

What has been your experience in drug research costs? How do you optimise costs? What’s your experience spending dollars internally and working with other partners, including Sun Pharma in India?

The cost of making a drug is always increasing. The way to offset that is to try to fail fast. The trick is to get the mix right. We are using digital tools – in India it is called AI – which is very good to screen molecules. Small chemical molecules have 25-50 atoms per molecule. In biological molecules, we are talking about 250,000 atoms per molecule. To screen these complex structures, you need a lot of computing power and digitalisation.