Navigating the Current Landscape for Pharma Leaders

Mike Hollan, Assistant Managing Editor, Pharmaceutical Executive

The 2020s have been a tumultuous decade so far, so it’s a good time for companies to look back at the previous five years and see what lessons can be learned to improve working environments and build stronger processes. Every industry has been rocked from world-shattering events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, while also having to adapt to new technologies, particularly around artificial intelligence (AI). As a result, the ways that employees and employers approach work has changed, and not always in ways that everyone is comfortable with.

One of the major challenges from this decade has been the rise of remote work. During the pandemic, companies were forced to incorporate this practice in order to keep employees safe. Since then, many organizations decided to keep the remote work structure in place, while others are pushing to bring employees back to the office.

I recently spoke with Renee Gala, president and chief operating officer of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, about her transition from chief financial officer (CFO) to her new role. For her, the impact of remote work is a big part of her story at Jazz.

“I joined the company in 2020,” says Gala. “It just so happened that my very first day was the day that the entire company went fully remote for COVID. That seems like ages ago now, but I was part of the very first class then of new Jazz trainees, where we were trying to adjust to training and onboarding people to join the company remotely. It was a really interesting way to join as the company’s new CFO.”

Aside from remote work, recent years have also seen a rise in the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) and a stronger view on creating a positive company culture. For Gala, this and remote work have played a huge role in the way that she approaches her leadership style.

“One of the things about Jazz that I think is remarkable is that when Jazz was formed over 20 years ago, it was founded based on being focused on patients—putting patients first,” she says. “This is not typically the way most biotech companies are formed, which is you start with a compound or a product. This was formed based on putting patients first and being a great place to work, and those two foundational elements of the company’s formation have stayed with us.

“We have stayed true to those two elements of our values,” continues Gala. “With respect to being a great place to work, we strongly believe that valuing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging is foundational to being a great place to work.”

Further, she explains, that the company is evolving to become more of a remote-first workforce. However, this doesn’t mean that Gala and other senior leaders don’t focus closely on making sure that everyone who works at Jazz feels included.

“While we are remote first, we do take the opportunity to purposefully and with intention come together with our employees as a matrix organization and in different locations to ensure that we maintain that underlying trust and connection,” she says. “If you look at our leadership team, it’s more than 50% female. We have a well-diversified board of directors, and that extends down to multiple layers within the organization, in terms of what you see as the composition of our employees. That is based on having a commitment to diversity and the underlying high-performance behaviors that are built on a foundation of trust. That includes constructive challenge, transparency, and a speak-up culture. We do believe that is incredibly important to ultimately getting to better results as a company.”

Biopharma organizations, today, must also navigate the increased disruption from AI—the pluses and minuses.

“We’re an industry that does face several challenges in terms of the importance of innovating for patients,” says Gala. “We’re also an industry that has many opportunities, such as the opportunities we have to incorporate artificial intelligence into research, development, and how we operate on a daily basis. Anything that we can do to speed up the rate of innovation for patients to be able to ensure we are as effective and efficient in delivering medicines to patients as possible.”

In balancing the adoption of AI and remote work, and strengthening practices in DE&I, not every company is going to have the same responses to each, nor should they. Often the best approach, according to Gala, is to simply hear the needs and desires of employers and not try to force solutions from a top-down approach.

Mike Hollan is Pharm Exec’s Assistant Managing Editor. He can be reached at mhollan@mjhlifesciences.com.