The story of how Juan Ramón Alaix was groomed for his CEO role and how Zoetis turned into the world’s largest publicly traded animal health company.

If you follow the U.S. stock markets, then you will probably agree that they tend to be a bit over-reactionary. For example, in February, Under Armour, which had reported 26 straight quarters of 20 percent revenue growth, reported fourth quarter earnings of just 12 percent.

As we get closer to one of our industry’s biggest annual gatherings, the BIO International 2017 Convention in San Diego, June 19 – 22, I have begun to pin down my schedule for which educational sessions I plan to attend. For me, this has always been a challenge, as BIO has so much great educational content. And with many of the educational sessions overlapping, I find I have to pick and choose where I want to be, often with at least two options from which to pick.

On April 25, 2017, I posted a blog asking the question, Who Is The Biopharmaceutical CEO Of The Year. In the blog, I included a link to a short survey. Our goal was twofold: see if there was enough interest in continuing to pursue such an award, and generate an initial list of names that would be in contention. Thus far, 10 names have been submitted via dozens of submissions, but it’s too early for us to make any decisions or conclusions based on such a small amount of data.  

Alan Dunton, M.D., joined Purdue Pharma as the SVP of R&D back in November 2015. An executive with over 33 years of discovery and development experience, he has been responsible for the approval of more than 20 prescription and OTC products. But now he faces a new challenge. Purdue Pharma is a company whose name has become synonymous with pain management.

In 2012, Pfizer announced a big decision — It was spinning off its $4 billion animal health business. Life Science Leader will explore the difficult task of such an undertaking in our June 2017 issue. And while the article, How Pfizer And Zoetis Launched One Of The Most Successful Spinoffs — Ever, discusses a lot of the important business decisions that were made, one thing not covered in great detail was the opportunity for Zoetis to build a corporate culture of its own.

In March I attended The Conference Forum’s R&D Leadership Summit. One of the panels that provided a great deal of insight involved executives discussing how to assess and create value for patients, payors, regulators, and society. This event employs the Chatham House Rule, which means “Neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed.” Despite not being able to reveal that info, I still think the ideas that were shared will prove valuable.

With the BIO International 2017 Convention being just seven weeks away, your preparations as an attendee should be well underway. But until they arrive on-site, many people often overlook deciding what educational sessions to attend. And while BIO attendees can afford to take such an approach, speakers certainly cannot. As the past BIO educational planning co-chair, I can attest that a lot of work goes into pulling off a high-quality educational session at BIO. Consider the following example.

When Life Science Leader magazine was invited to attend The Economist’s War On Cancer healthcare forum in Boston, Sept. 28, 2016, I wasn’t sure who I would meet. But one of the speakers whose name caught my attention was Dr. Alan Wright, and not just because we happen to share the same last name.