Thursday, February 13, 2014

Life Science Leadership: A Series of Interviews with Speakers at the CED Life Science Conference 2014



This interview: Constantine Chinoporos, Vice President Business Development, North American Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi

CED: There’s been much talk about the vast landscape changes expected in the Life Sciences industry between now and 2020. How do you think those changes will affect Sanofi—how will the company need to change to continue to ‘win’ in 2020?


Chinoporos:
Sanofi has been successfully shifting away from the blockbuster model toward one of diversification and a focus on a few core growth platforms: Emerging Markets, Diabetes, Vaccines, Consumer Healthcare, Animal Health, ‘New Genzyme’ 9rare diseases and MS) and Innovative Products. One trend focuses on evidence based medicine, which showcases the value of our solutions to physicians, payers, patients, caregivers, and others in the healthcare ecosystem.

The US remains critical in the success of Sanofi in 2020—innovation is possible because there is capital to fund it, flexible workforce to develop it, research being done, tax credits that stimulate innovation, etc. Success will also mean expanding our perimeter in Consumer Healthcare and Emerging Markets. We understand the importance of integrated care, that our external alliances are key to executing strategies and growth, and we’re committed to building more partnerships which is one of the many reasons Anne Whitaker, our North America Pharma president, has made co-chairing this year’s CED Life Science Conference a priority.

CED: The past year or two has seen an industry trend wherein companies are concerned about innovation funding. Will the way your company innovates in the future look different than it has in the past?

Chinoporos:
Research and development is the core of what we do, however, we understand that great science happens outside our walls. We’ve built a model for the external science in which we take a multifaceted approach to innovation and funding with these 4 core ways:



  1. R&D Strategy & Innovation
  2. Corporate Business Development
  3. Our research-driven Sunrise initiative, which partners with venture capital in early stage investments as well as company co-creation. We are interested in finding connections where Sanofi capabilities provide advantage to quickly and successfully move innovative programs into our development pipeline.
  4. Sanofi-Genzyme BioVentures, where we’ve carved out a separate business arm that brings some of the classical venture-style funding to our investments.




CED: Payer, provider, and advocacy groups seem to be having a more equal place at the product development table today. What challenges do you see in balancing the needs of all these stakeholders and collaborative partners?

Chinoporos:
It’s undeniable that the landscape has changed, making our jobs—bringing healthcare solutions to patients—more complex. It is also a tremendous opportunity for us because of the gaps that impact healthcare.

In today’s systems, there is huge inefficiency throughout the patient journey from wellness to diagnostics and treatment to mature stage monitoring and co-morbidity management. There is underinvestment in prevention leading to more expensive emergency care. The provision of care results in a patient receiving treatment is fragmented. There is a lack of data transfer and effective coordination across providers, payers, and institutions resulting in poor patient experience. And there is an urgent need to address outcomes and value-based healthcare.

At Sanofi, we believe we can help influence the delivery of effective care, likely including integrating all these distinct systems to provide better results. We work with all the stakeholders: patient, payer, provider, and family, which is why we’re engaging all these groups directly. Ultimately, greater involvement is crucial to meeting our ‘triple aim’ objectives—improving clinical outcomes, economic outcomes and the patient experience.

Read more interviews and register for North Carolina’s leading life science conference on the future of healthcare, brought to you by CED, NCBIO, and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, at www.cednc.org/lifescience.

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