The CMO Leadership Awards – A Celebration Of Continuous Improvement

By Rob Wright, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
Follow Me On Twitter @RfwrightLSL

When we were planning this year’s CMO Leadership Awards reception and ceremony, we could have simply implemented the previous year’s format and been done with it. After all, that year’s ceremony — our first ever — was a success, with 190 attendees and lots of winners. But instead, we decided to follow the lead of this year’s CMO Leadership Award winners and attempt to continuously improve the event. Based on the size of this year’s crowd of nearly 300 and their comments afterwards, it seems our changes were successful.

Keynote’s Keys To Continuous Improvement

One of the key components of continuous improvement involves leadership — specifically, leading by example. If you want people to change behavior and strive for continuous improvement, leaders must first demonstrate through deeds and actions a willingness to continuously improve themselves. This was one of the messages delivered by this year’s CMO Leadership Awards keynote speaker, Craig Kennedy, SVP global supply chain management at Merck. Kennedy, a manufacturing operational improvement veteran, began his presentation by sharing examples of implementing continuous improvement in his personal life to make the point that continuous improvement is a lifestyle to be lived, not a strategy to be implemented on semi-annual basis. It requires a focus on people, for he has yet to see a machine improve upon its performance. Many heads nodded in affirmation when Kennedy asked attendees if they had ever set manufacturing standards, only to witness within months of initiation they were no longer being met. Another tenet of continuous improvement is it requires people constantly striving to achieve beyond standards and benchmarks — in other words, a willingness to change, take risks, and try new things.

Continuous Improvement – Leading By Example

Having a keynote speaker at this year’s CMO Leadership Awards was a change from last year, and but one example of continuous improvement. We had Todd Schnick and Todd Youngblood (Dreamland Interactive radio personalities) conduct onsite video interviews of this year’s award winners. This was the result of a lesson learned from last year when we hastily attempted to conduct videos without a proper plan, personnel, or the necessary equipment to execute. We had Ed Miseta, chief editor of Outsourced Pharma and Clinical Leader, announce this year’s CMO Leadership Awards winners — another change geared toward continuous improvement based on previous experience. For example, last year, I would announce the award winners at the podium. As people came up on stage we would hand them the award, move to the center of the stage, pose for pictures, and then I would go back to the podium and repeat — a time-consuming process. This year, Ed announced the awards, and our strategic partner, Nice Insight, handed out the trophies as the person arrived on stage. The, Larry Kadis, president and CEO of our sponsor Federal Equipment, and I met the winners as they came off stage and posed for pictures (candid event photos here). This may seem like a minor detail, but it definitely sped up the presentation process and is an excellent example of how it is often the little things that make the difference. The 2013 five-category winners included two repeat winners from last year, Norwich Pharmaceuticals and Therapure Biopharma, along with Baxter, GSK, and Solvias. The 2013 four-category award winners included AbbVie, Aesica, Boehringer Ingelheim, DSM, Ei, Patheon, Pfizer Centresource, and Xcellience.

Another change we made to this year’s celebration was the addition of the Industry Choice Awards. As with all of the CMO Leadership Awards, these were determined by data collected from over 10,000 respondents responsible for the selection of pharmaceutical and biopharma outsourced services. We announced the top-scoring companies in alphabetical order by category (see tables) and then revealed the top-scoring company in each. Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies took home two Industry Choice Awards — productivity and regulatory. Penn Pharmaceutical Services was the Industry Choice Award winner for innovation, while Piramal Healthcare had the top score for reliability. The Industry Choice Award winner for quality was Boehringer Ingelheim (BI), an announcement that created a bit of a stir for some who expressed to me their displeasure at BI’s winning, citing the company being issued a 483 warning letter in 2013 (FDA warning letter list). I would like to address this concern.

Feedback Provides Insight

We always welcome feedback; it’s critical to our continuous improvement. Since beginning the CMO Leadership Awards, we have received a lot of feedback about the awards. Not surprisingly, I have had people question the data when their company did not win. Conversely, you may be surprised to learn I have had people question the data upon winning a CMO Leadership Award. One particularly insightful and instructive example came from an executive at a CMO who asked, “How can we be a winner of a CMO Leadership Award for innovation? We aren’t innovative.” This is a classic case of taking your perception and mistakenly believing it equivalent to that of your customer. Just because you aren’t actively marketing your company as being innovative, does not mean your customers are therefore incapable of perceiving your company as being innovative. Conversely, just because a company receives an FDA warning letter, does not mean it incapable of managing customer perceived quality through proactive outreach to explain the situation. However, within Life Science Leader, we do apply an additional step in the case of a CMO receiving an FDA warning letter and being eligible for a CMO Leadership Award. If a CMO receives a warning letter, and it is within two calendar years of the research results being reported, they are removed from CMO Leadership Award consideration. However, in the case of BI, like other CMOs with branded parent companies, we took an extra step of researching if the violation occurred inside a facility that functions as a CMO. In the BI case, our research showed the violation did not occur within a CMO facility. When someone asks me how they can win a CMO Leadership award, my advice is simple — ask your customers, for it is their perception of your company that drives the awards.  

We appreciate your feedback and look forward to seeing you at next year’s CMO Leadership Awards celebration. You can bet we will be implementing some changes geared toward continuous improvement.

Table 1

Industry Choice Award Finalists

(*) denotes Industry Choice Award category winner