As we all know, understanding one’s customer is essential. So toward that end, from a CEO perspective, I’ve always tried to get inside the heads of Pharma Executives. Recently, with this new breed of Pharma CEOs, that task has been made somewhat easier. These new Pharma executives seem much more open and willing to divulge their strategies and opinions on a variety of general health care, financial, social and corporate related topics. Recently there have been a number of changes at the top of big Pharma. What else can boards and shareholders really do to impact the direction of a company but change its leadership?

These are trying times in big Pharma and fresh ideas and new energy are now requirements. I welcome these new leaders, who at first blush, appear to be better and more willing communicators on the issues that challenge the industry and healthcare in general.

Make no mistake; these folks are inheriting a monster. Large, change-resistant organizations, fed historically by a steady and dependable flow of new products, have produced some of the largest corporations in the world. These behemoths require a lot of fuel to keep going and growing. As we all know, innovative discoveries and resultant products have been substantially depleted. This, in turn, has created a substantial reduction in the amount of fuel available to sustain big pharma at historical levels of growth and profitability. The worst is probably yet to come, given stalled pipelines, patent expirations, generics and increased regulatory scrutiny. This new breed of Pharma leaders had better be up for some challenging times.

As I have tuned into these new leaders, there are several themes that seem to be emerging. These leaders are more willing to openly discuss the challenges they face. This is a good thing, because the industry really no longer has any place to hide. However, I give credit to leaders who openly and honestly admit to challenges and then propose solutions. I believe there is a fair amount of consensus regarding the issues that confront the industry. So, on that front, there really isn’t any “new” news coming from these executives. Everyone’s figured out that the R&D model has become too diffuse, unmanageable and non-productive. The clinical trials that follow, therefore, have unsustainable failure rates and exorbitant costs. The commercialization phase struggles with distancing itself from traditional marketing and promotional strategies and tactics that haven’t evolved in decades. So I think these folks have finally figured out that pretty much the entire business model needs immediate attention.

As managers we all know how difficult it is to truly solve more than any one significant problem at a time. So Big Pharma certainly has its hands full at the moment and for the foreseeable future.

What I find far more interesting than the identification and articulation of the challenges, are the approaches to the solutions. Again some common themes emerge.

Call it a War and Give it a Slogan.

First, let’s not forget that Americans love to go to “war” on difficult problems. We’ve had them all. There’s the War on Poverty, Crime, Terrorism and Drugs to name a few. It seems that when a problem appears too big, you better have a war on it. And based on what I’m hearing, I think that Pharma has declared “War” on itself.

So now you’ve got your new, energized leader in place who’s looked around and concluded that just about every moving part of the current business model needs change, and therefore, to have any chance at all of surviving you’ve got to declare all out war. New leader. Declaration of war. Now what?

Well, as we all know, every good war needs a slogan. What’s a war on anything unless you have a slogan that gives the war real life and the troops a rallying point? (Novartis-Forward Initiative, Merck-Plan To Win, Wyeth-Project Springboard, to name a few).

OK, now we’ve got the leader; declaration of war and a slogan to go with it. But hold on, you’re not done yet. You now need a managerial shake-up and a new team willing to sacrifice all to spread the mantra and execute the plan. Look how many new teams have been put in place over just the last year.

I might just add how interesting and sometimes amusing all this is from the pharma supplier side. You’ll be sitting in a meeting with a client, typically at the brand level; all things are going well, and in walks one of these recently anointed change agents. The whole room tenses up, the client is concerned that the vendor may say something not consistent with the new approach, thereby putting the product people in a potentially career altering situation.

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