The PharmaBrands Podcast
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The PharmaBrands Podcast
Angela Thompson, Country President for Belgium and Luxemburg, AstraZeneca, Shares Insights from Around the World.
Our guest this episode has a circuitous route to her current role leading BeLuz for AZ. Time in Canada, Japan and in Global roles has informed her perspective and shaped her approach as she now leads two countries launching over a dozen new drugs in the next two years. In our conversation Angela shares that perspective and reflects on all that is to come.
After you check out the episode, don’t forget to head to pharmabrands.ca to get your tickets for our June 17th Age of AI event in Toronto, before they sell out!
Our host is Neil Follett, Co-Founder of PharmaBrands and our Producer is Darryl Webster with Chess Originals
Angela, thank you for joining us this, evening for you, but midday for me.
Speaker 2:Absolute pleasure to be here, Neil.
Speaker 1:I feel like the emcee at a wedding who needs to acknowledge the person who's traveled the farthest to come to the wedding. You are the guest who has traveled the farthest to be on the show, so thank you very much. You are talking to us from Brussels right now, is that right?
Speaker 2:That's right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Amazing. I'm just fascinated at making the jump from a Canadian VP to not only the president of one country but two, and so I really want to get a sense of kind of what that transition has been like and what it's like to run in a role at that scale. But why don't we start like all the way back, way, way back? How did you first get into this industry?
Speaker 2:the way back, way, way back. How did you first get into this industry? I'm a pharmacist by background.
Speaker 2:When I graduated from U of T with my degree in pharmacy, I very quickly realized the traditional pharmacy jobs were not for me, whether it was hospital pharmacy or working in the local shoppers drug mart pharmacy.
Speaker 2:So I took a position in a pharmaceutical company and at that point I was in more of a market access reimbursement type of role I'm doing the health economic assessments, the dossiers for submissions and so on and worked really collaboratively, obviously with the medical team and the commercial team. I knew early in my career that maybe I wasn't going to spend my entire trajectory within market access and thankfully I worked at a company at the time that was very open to providing employees that they saw that had potential, with a breadth of experiences across different functions. So I worked in the Canadian market access department and then I took an assignment in our global organization in market access and then returned to Canada and did a short development stint in sales and then moved into marketing and then from there I've kind of stayed within the commercial vertical, having worked in Canada and the US and in Japan from a market perspective and then also working from a global perspective as well.
Speaker 1:We have sort of two themes on the show. One we tend to talk to people, for some strange reason, kind of right around when they're having a work anniversary, so that's come up a lot. And then the other theme is people who trained to be pharmacists and then decided that they were not actually going to practice as pharmacists. So that is a story that we've heard before. But what was it like for you switching training as a pharmacist and then switching into a fairly large organization and then navigating through that organization into the US and back into Canada? I know it was a while ago, but what was that like in those early days of your career?
Speaker 2:So I'll be honest, my journey into pharmacy was not like. It was a calling that I thought I had. I loved math and science in school, calling that I thought I had. You know, I loved math and science in school and my roommate was going into pharmacy school and she really talked it up and I knew I didn't want to be a doctor because I'm like I don't want to, I don't want the hours and I don't want to touch people.
Speaker 1:Making it difficult to be a doctor.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it just, and she was so passionate about it that I just kind of jumped on her bandwagon but then realized the scope of practice for pharmacists in Canada is, in my opinion, a bit limited vis-a-vis what you learn in school and the depth of insight that you gain on medication management and and and how to optimize. But you're not empowered to make those decisions. And so I know myself, and I knew that I would be quite frustrated to be in that situation.
Speaker 1:So, so, honestly, I was looking for a different avenue where I could still leverage, you know, everything that I had had learned and all the time I invested in getting the PharmD while still having much more opportunity to grow and to push myself, and so a pharma seemed like the best avenue for me at the time, and I've just had a really good journey along the way, had a really good journey along the way and do you feel like it accelerated things for you a little bit in the early days, combined with obviously natural talents and inclination towards this stuff because your career has been fantastic but did you feel like in those early days that it gave you just a different foundation than some of the other folks in the organization?
Speaker 2:Yes and no. So I say yes because what it allowed for was me to seamlessly move from one was non-traditional, especially on the commercial side. So often when pharmacists did go into industry they were going more along the medical route. So as a med info manager, an MSL, a medical manager, something to that extent, you know, a medical manager, something to that extent, and the typical profile and the types of roles I was taking was more your MBA grad. So I was a bit of a dichotomy in that sense. So I did feel like I really needed to prove myself, but it was, I'm not going to say, easy, but it was facilitated by the fact that I had this strong science and math background from my pharmacy education.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So you find your, or you navigate your way over through a whole bunch of different interesting roles and over into the US and you land in a marketing role. Let's sort of pick up the journey from there and you've sort of stayed, obviously, as you said, kind of on the commercial side of the business. How did things go from there?
Speaker 2:I landed into my first marketing role in Canada and launched a brand. It went well. I then took a role in Canada on a much bigger brand you know, the biggest brand in the organization and then got a tap on the shoulder by a woman who I had worked with when I had done my global job in market access a few years prior. So I had gone on an assignment in the US taking a global market access role and she was the commercial lead for the product I was working on. She had heard I had moved to the commercial side. She was now the commercial lead for the product I was working on. She had heard I had moved to the commercial side. She was now the commercial VP in Japan and she was looking to fill a position with a foreign talent and she asked about my receptivity to relocate to Japan on assignment for a few years.
Speaker 2:So it was a bit of a. You know. I was in a position where I could be open to opportunities and some of the equity I had created and some of the networking that I had created in a previous role all kind of came together to provide me with this opportunity. Different market that has it makes Canada seem really small when you're in a market that size, just in terms of the resources you have, the number of people but what really set Japan apart was just the amount of data that you have access to and then what you can do with that data. So it's a really great learning opportunity for me.
Speaker 2:And then from there I came back to Canada and was able to accelerate my career a bit more because I did have this outside of market experience. That really differentiated me from my peers who, you know, had maybe done a global role as well, or you know US, but there wasn't really anyone within my comparative set that had you know US, but there wasn't really anyone within my comparative set that had, you know, gone to an Asian market before and had that learning. So it was great for me from a learning perspective, but it also helped differentiate me from a competitive perspective.
Speaker 1:And so, when you came back, I also want to have a whole conversation about, like, what was it like in Japan?
Speaker 1:Everybody I feel like everybody I know right now is traveling to Japan. That must be another podcast. So when you came back and you know, it seems like to a certain extent your eyes were opened a little bit in terms of the data that they had in that market and how they use that data. Were you able to apply any of that to Canada, appreciating that we have a very limited data set comparatively Like. Was that something that you were able to kind of carry along with you when you got back?
Speaker 2:I think what I was able to carry with me is really putting a discipline around measuring the impact of what we were doing.
Speaker 2:You know, I think, before I had gone to Japan and Canada doing, you know, I think, before I had gone to Japan and Canada, we did a lot right and we celebrated getting things done, getting things out the door, how many people opened an email, so to speak, but not really the impact down the line of that email.
Speaker 2:You know, seeing another market where you could measure beyond that really allowed me to see. You know you could. With better measurement plans and collection of data, you can really understand better the effectiveness of a channel, not just broadly speaking, but specifically to a given physician, and then you can use that to show, okay, so where physicians are on the adoption ladder this type of specialist or this primary care physician and you can predict better which channels will move them along. So I really saw the importance of that. Now there was, as you said, the robustness of the data is much different in Canada, but I could at least apply that philosophy to the work that we could do and even though the data is a bit imperfect and there's a lot of assumptions, and at least we were trying to measure the impact of the various channels and the various activities to ascribe a bit of a swag ROI, if you will to them to be able to make educated trade-off decisions and prioritization decisions.
Speaker 1:And it's interesting timing and that was in and around kind of 10 years ago, I think.
Speaker 2:Exactly 10 years ago I came back. See, there you go. Anniversary.
Speaker 1:Nailed it. See, there you go, Anniversary, Nailed it. And you know, I'd say 10 years ago is it was in the probably 10 year stretch of where it was the age of, you know, the year of digital and pharma. But you know, really, I think 10 years ago is when there was a more, I think, kind of disciplined approach to doing this kind of modeling. Different channels were opening up here in Canada, there was different levels of experimentation. So it feels like it would have been a good time to come back with some real deep understanding of some of those kind of tricks of the marketing trade as they were in their very nascent stages here in this market right.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because they were not in their nascent stages when I was in Japan. I mean, they were having virtual conferences with avatars, you know, and we had avatar sales reps making calls on customers, like it was, you know. I don't even know that we're there today yet in Canada, and, like you said, that was 10 years ago when I was in Japan.
Speaker 1:Why don't we sort of zip through and give me some of the greatest hits you know between then and when you get this news that you're going to head over to Europe? Because I'm really interested in jumping over to talk about kind of what you're doing now and what that experience is like. So talk us through kind of what got you to the email or the knock on the door that said, hey, angela, we've got an opportunity in Europe for you.
Speaker 2:So a couple things. So I, coming back after Japan, I spent a few years doing a global commercial leadership role, which again was a really big learning opportunity for me a next level, and then joined AstraZeneca, which is where I am now, after a couple other career shifts here and there, and, luckily for me, it's a company that shares the same types of values that I have. It's a company that really believes in the development of its employees and it's also afforded opportunities for those who they deem to have potential and also mobility. So I'm lucky that my family decided that they were up for this challenge, and so when I got tapped on the shoulder and asked if I would be interested in interviewing for the country presidency position for Belgium and Luxembourg, I was in a position where I could capitalize on the door that was opening and jump in.
Speaker 2:And for me, although the size of the business in Belgium and Luxembourg isn't huge, it's probably in and around the same size of the business I was managing in Canada. What it does do is give me a much bigger breadth of responsibilities, both in terms of, you know, being responsible across functions, you know, across all the therapeutic areas that AstraZeneca operates in, but it also gives me a different platform in terms of building that external network from a policy shaping, policy influencing perspective. So it's a growth opportunity that where I wanted to really stretch myself, to see if I could push myself out of my comfort zone, because I think I'm naturally an introverted person and working and working with politicians is not for the faint of heart.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:And so it was just a perfect alignment of the stars. There was this opportunity. My family was obviously. My family was open, my husband was open, my son. It took a little bit of convincing to jump across the Atlantic for a few years to, you know, jump across the Atlantic for a few years, and so they've really enabled me to be able to to to jump on this and and to take this role, which is absolutely huge.
Speaker 1:Right, that's so I do this.
Speaker 1:I say, hey, let's go forward, and then I'm going to go back for a second. So one of the things that I'm, you know, I'm always sort of fascinated in as people move into these roles that you know as you just said so perfectly, it has a certain depth but also realize that things that might have been strengths in a different role aren't necessarily strengths in this new, very broad, deep role. So I'm thinking about you mentioned the global commercial leadership role and you said that was a really big learning opportunity Maybe reflect on, if you can, maybe in that role and then, as you moved into this new, you know really big role, what are the things that you have found yourself kind of just sort of maybe naturally doing you know less of, maybe naturally doing more of? Where are the things that you're realizing that? Hey, you know this is a skill I might need to beef up a little bit as I get into this new context. Walk me through a bit of what does that change like for just you, sort of as a person and as a leader?
Speaker 2:It's almost a complete 180, right? So when I was in the global commercial role, you are focused on this one brand and it is your baby. You know it inside and out. Like you go to a level of depth, even at a more senior level, on this one brand. Then when you move to a business unit director role, you have maybe four or five brands, but you can still get to a layer of depth that makes it seem, at least on the surface level, that you know all these details. You don't, but you can have this confidence because you can get at least to like the 10,000 foot level.
Speaker 2:Now I'm in a situation where there's 25 brands. We've got five launches this year, seven launches next year. It is impossible, I can't keep them straight in my head. Just when I think I've got it, I'm in a meeting and I'm like no, I thought this one was that. And so, like I've had to learn that there's a comfort level that come like that I've had to gain with having just the right making sure I have just the area where you can challenge based on that. I don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:No, that makes a ton of sense I actually think that when you're earlier in your career, one of your greatest assets is to be able to have all the right answers, because you've got all of those details. And as you get more senior in your career, one of the greatest assets is to be able to ask all the right questions right. It's just there's sort of two different sides of the same coin. I also find it amazing that you're the country president of two countries. I would be insufferable, Like I would leave the house every morning and say, okay, everybody, I'm off to run the countries. What felt familiar as you settled into this new role and what were some of the bigger hills to climb as you settled into that new role?
Speaker 2:Specifically from a job perspective. I think you know the things that were familiar. I'm lucky right. The culture in Belgium and Luxembourg is quite similar to the culture in Canada, not just because it's the same company.
Speaker 2:And so there's this, you know pervasive work culture but, also just philosophically, the you know relative importance of work life balance is similar. Canada to Belgium, you know the types of innate values that the population have are very similar. So it was, it was. It's an easy market to ease into. There really isn't that much of a culture shock, I would say. And because I'm bilingual, that's even more helpful because you know I can, I can at least speak one of the local languages. I think what's different and this might sound strange is because my other markets outside of Canada prior to here were the US and Japan, which are like mega markets.
Speaker 2:I had always thought of Canada as being a small market and that we were, like, you know, lean and you know, punching above our weight.
Speaker 2:And then I came to Belgium and realized, oh no, no, no, canada is actually a large market.
Speaker 2:And so you know really having to reshape my thinking as well, be much more ruthless in the prioritization than I've ever been, and having to make sure that we're really, really looking and saying no to things, because we have to make sure that we're successful in other areas, because, whereas in Canada you might have, let's say, a brand manager for every brand, in a smaller market you have one person that's maybe doing two brands, and so you've got to make some trade-offs that are uncomfortable, right, because, at the end of the day, if you're deciding not to launch because of circumstances, whether it is what the willingness to pay of the payer or your ability to really execute on it locally, there's a patient at the other end of that. So we do have to be really, really thoughtful about where we are investing our time and our resources so that we can have the impact to the local healthcare system and local society that we want to have, whereas in Canada, where we have more access to resources, we can often do both.
Speaker 1:Is the regulatory environment? I should probably know this, but is the regulatory environment?
Speaker 2:it's much more similar to Canada than it is to the US, obviously right. So from a regulatory perspective, all approvals is a pan-European approval in terms of bringing products to market in Europe. So Belgium and Luxembourg are both part of the EU member states and so we follow CHMP and EMA in terms of regulatory approval. But market access and reimbursement is handled individually by the member states. So in Luxembourg it's quite straightforward. In Belgium, sadly, it is much more challenging than it is in Canada, I would say.
Speaker 1:As you oriented yourself to the markets that you're operating in now, have there been moments where you've been surprised at either you know channels or tactics or strategies that feel steps ahead of where you came from in Canada, and maybe ones that are steps behind, just to sort of help people orient as to you know what it's like to work in those markets.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think there is. You know, there is a different level of entrepreneurship when you are a little bit more resource lean. So what I've seen is and this is not to like, this is not to say that that in Canada we weren't entrepreneurial and creative, but you know, I think there's, there's, it's on both sides right. So there's some things where I think, wow, like you know, there's, there's a real learning here that we could bring to other markets and in other areas, you know there's. It's the opposite, and I think it's really just a matter of making sure we're not recreating the wheel and we're learning from both the successes and the you know what didn't work in other markets. So I agree, I think there's, it's both.
Speaker 1:It goes both ways for sure ai is on my mind in general, um, as a human who still wants to have value and creativity, also as a business owner who's running an event on AI on June 17th very, very, very top of mind, and I look at the models and the releases that have come out lately and just how quickly all of this is evolving and I think there's a lot of markets that are trying to figure out how both to harness and contain and leverage and be safe from AI. I've had really interesting conversations with leaders here in Canada whose position ranges from legal says no, like nobody's allowed to use AI to we're deploying licenses for a whole bunch of different platforms to try to get the most out of this and make sure that the team is leveraging it. What is the level of, you know, maybe sort of AI comfort and or adoption? Why don't we just sort of say like sort of culturally there and then more specifically within AZ, in the regions that you're responsible for?
Speaker 2:So I would say I think, generally speaking, pharma is probably a bit behind other industries, just just, you know, given some of the the sensitivities.
Speaker 2:So I know, with AstraZeneca, we are creating our own in-house, proprietary versions of tools that are out there, like ChatGPT, because there is concern about employees putting potentially sensitive company information on a public platform.
Speaker 2:So I think that's made us be a little bit more slow in some ways in some aspects, and I can't speak to what is happening with other companies, but I can say it's a really big investment area for AstraZeneca, not just from a commercial perspective, but particularly from a research perspective as well. You know how can we develop these medications faster and more economically, leveraging these advances in technology by using things like digital twins and so on? And then, from a commercial perspective, it's also you know how can we make better decisions, faster decisions, prioritize better, you know, really take the administrative burden off of our employees so that instead, their time is spent being strategic and doing things that AI can't do. And that's been the focus area for us and I would say, for at least the vast majority of my team members here in Belgium and Luxembourg. They are using some sort of AI tool in one way or another on a daily basis.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Whether it is, you know, pulling the salient points out of the latest market research data, whether it's, you know, pulling out key points from a trial that was just published, or whether it's creating the slide deck that they're going to use for the next presentation. Whatever it is, everyone is really keen to adopt because they're seeing the potential for how it can reduce busy work and allow them to have more think time.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So this is maybe a bit more of a personal question, but a few minutes ago you mentioned that you were naturally a bit more of an introvert. Being the country president of two countries and being in the role that you are, there's there's a bit of like an all eyes on Angela right Like when you walk into the room that you know people know that you're there, you're in big rooms right With and I don't just mean sort of size wise, but I mean you know with the folks that you're spending time with. How do you like, just at a sort of a human level, like, how do you find balance? Because it, because I imagine it takes extra energy to be, you know, to own those rooms the way that you do. How do you do that and how do you, how do you find balance? I think there's a lot of folks on that listen who you know are also, you know, working through that as they, as they become more senior.
Speaker 2:I think it, it it was a learned skill for me. So really earlier in my career, you know, being a sales rep was really pushing me out of my comfort zone from that perspective, right, and I remember kind of having to psych myself up every day to get out there and just over time I think I've just learned techniques to have the out-of-body experience and embody the extrovert that you're expected to be in these types of roles. But yes, it does get a bit exhausting at times, right. So I think it's finding that right balance and also knowing how to not overcommit myself, to make sure I have some of that downtime to re-energize, to be able to get up and do it again the next day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sometimes it's the commute home. That is that. Yeah, it's like, oh, the traffic's not so bad if the traffic's bad, because it just means you get an extra couple of minutes, exactly. So, looking forward, I think Rough Math did you say there's 13 launches coming up in the next 24 months.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and more right the year after. So the benefit and the curse, if you will, so to speak, of being at a company like AstraZeneca that's really invested in the science is that we have a really strong pipeline and a lot coming through. So obviously it's great. It's great from a business perspective, it's great from a patient perspective. A business perspective, it's great from a patient perspective. You know the the I air quote.
Speaker 2:The curse is that we've got to really figure out how do you successfully launch in this type of setting in a different way.
Speaker 2:Because you know it's, it's one thing when you're at an organization that has one or two launches in a year. It's another thing when you're looking at, you know seven. And how do you make sure that you're making sure that your base business continues to be successful and grow and you put the right allocation of time and resources on these launches? Because you know, as you know, neil, those first few months of a launch really set that trajectory and it's hard to change that trajectory once it's set. And then you're just in launch mode because they're coming and they're coming and they're coming. So how do we do that differently in this environment? And so I think it's, you know it tends to actually be a little bit perfect that we are having these riches of pipeline at a time where technology is advancing so much, and so we can really challenge ourselves to think about how we resource these launches and our go-to-market model differs than what it might have five years ago, when we were launching one or two.
Speaker 1:You know to the extent that you can share, again appreciating that you know lots of this is sensitive, and can you share or reflect on any ways that you have decided to do it a little bit differently, given you know the pace and the velocity of all that? And to your earlier comment, you know it sounds like a pretty static team, like everybody's looking to do. You know more with the same, so are you able to sort of share a couple of ways that you're kind of getting more out of sort of everybody's time and energy?
Speaker 2:So part of it is is trying as much as possible to remove the administrative burden from people Interesting and, you know, really seeing how can we can deal with that differently. You know, another thing that we're looking at is how we resource these launches and, you know, do we take a leap of faith for a launch that has, you know, maybe a smaller market potential or a smaller patient population, and consider doing a digital only launch and see if that's successful? So there's a couple things that we're toying with to see how we resource this and bring things to market, because we have shareholders right. So we have to be very mindful of our profitability margins and launches. As you know, there's a lot of upfront investment and you don't get that payoff for a few years. So how do we do that but still keep relatively stable profitability margins, and so that really necessitates some creative thinking around how we do this.
Speaker 1:You know, firmer launches always strike me as the perfect embodiment of that old quote of you know, I know 50% of my advertising dollars are working. I just don't know what 50% and you don't. You know, when you're doing seven plus in a year, you know you don't have the luxury. You know that I've seen it maybe with other brands, other companies other times, where there's just there's really let's throw a whole bunch of stuff up on the wall and and and something will stick right. Like there's just not the, the bandwidth to be able to do that. So really interesting. And also, you know they're happening so quickly and I'm guessing in like different kind of therapeutic categories, etc, etc. That that it's not even as though you can. You know, reflect back on that launch that happened eight weeks ago and pull a whole bunch of learnings right. Like you know they're happening in really rapid succession.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, I think. You know. I think that the benefit is that they are across. You know a range of therapeutic areas and so there is some natural, you know, divide and conquer, if you will, from an employee based perspective.
Speaker 2:But you're absolutely right, you know the old spray and pray approach of you know we don't know what exactly works, so we have to just keep doing everything. And you know we just keep adding on because we're not sure what would happen if we took something away. It's just not viable. And so, as we go through the internal launch, readiness reviews, a big component of that is what is the measurement plan, what are the early indicators that we can get? And again, in an environment that's not as data rich as some other markets like the US or Japan, you do have to be a bit more creative. But I think we are spending a lot of time and energy and making sure that we have as good a measurement plan as we can so that we can make educated decisions and potentially, you know, not build the ship as we're going, but be able to react more quickly, if you will, so that we can set that strong trajectory before the next one comes.
Speaker 1:What an absolutely amazingly exciting time. I know we're sort of talking practically about how are we going to pull it all off, but what just an amazing experience to be over in Europe with your family. That's kind of cool. To begin with, I appreciate you've already got Japan under your belt. But you know, and then you're in this really interesting broad role with a slew of launches. Like what a really amazing opportunity at a time, like you said, where technology is really enabling some of this work in a way that was kind of unimaginable like 24 months ago, right when you maybe were first starting thinking about this role. Like it's a really does it feel like it? Does it feel like you've just landed in such an interesting spot?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I mean, I've been on the other side of the coin, right. I've been at companies that were on a downward trend, where there was some LOEs without anything in the pipeline to make up for it, and so you're going through, you know, biannual cycles of, you know, cuts to both resources and to people. So it's, I can say I much enjoy being on this side of the coin. It's a lot more fun. There's nothing more fun than launching and the excitement that comes with it. But but also, just you know the energy of the team that I work with, the engagement of the people.
Speaker 2:I work with their passion. You know it's, it's really contagious and and whether it passion, you know it's really contagious and whether it's you know someone that's working in oncology or someone that's working in asthma. You know everyone feels really empowered and really passionate about the work that they're doing and the impact that they could have if they, if we could, you know, solve the puzzle and get it right and make sure that patients have access to the treatments that they deserve to have access to, based on guidelines. So it's just a great time, I have to say for sure, and living in Europe doesn't hurt.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that that's a perfect way to close, because I was going to say I've also had a great time chatting with you this evening and your time, and I really appreciate you taking the time. I knew you were busy at work. I didn't know quite how busy you were, so an extra thanks for taking some time out to chat with us at the end of your day.
Speaker 2:Oh, my pleasure, Neil. Thanks so much for inviting me.