ITW Consulting Flashcards
introduction (industry)
Your academic background, tell me about your pharma studies
- I am passionate about medical and scientific innovation for a long time now, and that’s what pushed me to integrate pharma studies.
- During Pharmacy studies in France, you have to specialize between city pharmacy, hospital or industry. I specialized in industry, where I followed more specific teachings, clinical and preclinical trials, regulatory affairs, or Health Economics or law
- Then, because I was also interested in business, I completed my studies with a business degree at ESCP business school, where I followed the teachings of Management, Market Access, Marketing, Finance, with teachers from the school as well as professionnals of the sector and projects with companies, pharmaceutical companies, VCs funds or strategy consulting firms
Thesis subject
Thesis: Personalized medicine in pediatric oncology and indication by molecular anomaly: the example of TRK selective inhibitors
- My thesis is about a new class of targeted therapies : TRK selective inhibitors
- First class of TTT approved in Europe as tumor agnostic, meaning that these TTT are not made for only 1 type of histologic cancer, but usable for any cancer, carrying a specific genetic abnomaly, no matter the location
- We already use targeted therapies, targeting a specific abnomaly, but 99% of the time, they are not usable to every cancers carrying this abnomaly, so we have to perform histologic tests to define the right TTT to use anyway.
- These treatments, the TRK selective inhibitor are the first TTT in Europe where we proved that if a patient is carrier of a specific genetic abnomaly, the treatment will work, no matter the location or the type of cancer.
- This is a big evolution, because today, most of the time, Dr are obliged to determine the right treatment to use for the patient according to guidelines based on info regarding the tissue and the cells touched. This is not always accurate.
- Looking at the genetic abnomaly directly and knowing we have TTT for this abnomaly specifically will allow us to do less mistakes choosing the right TTT for a patient, but also to have less side effect. Having less side effect means a better quality of life, but also that these TTT can be used by fragile patients, especially young children and baby.
ESCP studies
- I am passionate about medical and scientific innovation for a long time now, and that’s what pushed me to integrate pharma studies.
- During Pharmacy studies I specialized in industry, where I followed more specific teachings, clinical and preclinical trials, regulatory affairs, or Health Economics or law
- Then, because I was also interested in business, I completed my studies with a business degree at ESCP business school, where I followed the teachings of Management, Market Access, Marketing, Finance, with teachers from the school as well as professionnals of the sector and projects with companies, pharmaceutical companies, VCs funds or strategy consulting firms
ESCP Thesis
- Thesis: The strategic role of R&D outsourcing in pharmaceutical innovation
- This thesis was linked to one of my internships, at Servier. I joined a team in charge of the scouting for all the startups and biotechs linked to neurological and inflammatory diseases, with the aim to make acquisitions, licencing, a co-development, partnerships with public and private research institutes as well.
- I found this approach very interesting, and that’s why I decided to join this team
- It’s been a few years that more than 50% of the R&D budget of pharma companies Is used for acquisitions and licencing or co-development, instead of ” internal development”
- HA ask more and more proofs of the safety and efficiency of the drug-candidates. This makes the drugs more and more complex, and more and more expensive to develop.
- There is also more and more competition in the pharma. To generalize, we can also say that we switched to an industry trusted by a few big companies only developing tens of drugs at the same time, to an ecosystem with a lot of competition. We have a lot of mid-size companies, hundreds, thousands of mid-sizes companies, biotechs and small startups, developing 1 to 5 drugs.
- To avoid these problems, externalizing its research can be a new growth engine:
o If your company needs medium-term income: acquisition / licensing
o If you want to lower the risk: acquisition / licensing
o If you want to split the risk / investment: co development
o Startup incubation to follow closely interesting startups
My position at Sanofi (BU/PME/Region/Swixx)
- In 2021, Sanofi decided to close its offices in 14 “small countries” in Europe and to create a BU in Prague in charge of these 14 countries (Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Balkans, Bulgaria, Baltics) representing a total of 70 million people.
- Sanofi is no longer physically present in these countries, and we therefore we work with a partner, Swixx, responsible for representing us in these countries.
- My role is to coordinate and support these local teams for the pricing and Market Access part aspects. We define the pricing and ma strategy at Sanofi, and our partner represent us to local health authorities
Missions at Sanofi (general)
- Coordinating and supporting local teams in 14 countries of Eastern, Central & Southern Europe
- Supporting the pricing strategy for launch of new vaccines to optimize commercial success
- Perform analysis and providing strategic recommendations to optimize pricing for registered vaccines
- Tracking new EU and national pricing regulations to anticipate and mitigate any impact
Missions at Sanofi (examples)
- Legislation change in LV
o In the end of 2024, Latvia announced a change in its pricing legislation, driving down prices
o Latvia is a key country for us, with high prices, supporting prices for a lot of our countries
o I had to assess quick which countries were at risk to be impacted, and to find solutions to avoid decrease on multiple countries, which could cause a snowball effect in all the region, this is what we wanted to avoid absolutely
o So, to remain brief I had to assess the risk in all countries which use Latvia as a reference country, and with local teams we’ve worked hard to find a way for every country, every product to avoid a decrease
o We finally found solution for every product of every country impacted
o I am very proud of that because this was my first mission being responsible of the pricing - Launch of a vaccine in AT, which was about to drop prices in Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia, and to create a snowball effect in the region
- Switch QIV to TIV
o Until today, flu vaccines were tetravalents, he was made to protect against 4 difference strains of flu
o One of these strains, the Yamagata strain, has totally disappeared, and the WHO stated that there is no need anymore to include a Yamagata strain in the flu vaccines
o Thus, in 2024, it was decided by the WHO to move “back” from a tetravalent vaccines to trivalent
o Following WHO recommendations, countries have started for most of them order trivalent vaccines instead of tetravalent. But we have a problem: the trivalent vaccine is legally a new vaccine, and we have thus to submit new dossiers and receive Marketing approvals and P&R dossiers before being able to sell new flu vaccines to countries.
o So we are actually submitting P&R dossiers in almost all the 14 countries I am in charge at the same time and in emergency, to be able to play the tenders in countries requiring trivalent vaccines in 2025 - Increase in the price of verorab in Bulgaria (had to convince the Czech Republic and Romania to do something about it)
Why Market Access / Pricing ?
- I discovered 1st market access during my studies, in pharmacy studies and in my BS.
- Later, during my internship, I also I worked on pricing missions when I was intern, and it was way more complex and interesting that I thought? So when I saw an opportunity to do “pure” pricing, I took the opportunity
