The Most Creative Collaborations In Healthcare
By Rob Wright, Chief Editor, Life Science Leader
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By Rob Wright
This was the question I posed to the panel members of the DSM-sponsored Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA) Metro Chapter program entitled Creative Collaborations in Healthcare. Held at DSM’s Parsippany, NJ offices on May 21, 2013, the query got some interesting responses from the panelists, which included Jo Pisani, partner at PwC; Barbara Bush, CEO and co-founder of Global Health Corps; Paul Antinori, SVP of The Medicines Company; Lara Fontaine, VP at Pfizer; Pam Bolton, VP of GBC Health; and Pamela Demain, executive director at Merck. For example, Pisani noted the partnership between McLaren Formula 1 Racing and GSK as being one of the more creative collaborations of which she is aware. Pisani described how the two companies are using real-time driver and vehicle monitoring technology which may lead to improvements in remote healthcare monitoring technology. Another interesting example was shared by Merck’s Demain, who discussed the collaboration of her company with AstraZeneca to test two cancer drugs as a single therapy. On the surface this may not seem like anything very special as drug companies seem to collaborate all the time. But what made this collaboration intriguing is how and where it began.
Serendipity Rewards A Well-Prepared Mind
According to Demain, the story of the collaboration between Merck and AstraZeneca began as follows. Two scientists were leaving a conference in California. During the security screening process at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), a scientist from Merck, who happened to be working on a cancer drug, struck up a conversation with a scientist from AstraZenenca who — you guessed it — also was working on a very similar cancer drug. This led to the subsequent collaboration between the two companies, a first of its kind according to Demain. The president of DSM pharmaceutical products, Xander Wessels, commented to me on the important role “serendipity” played in the creation of this Big Pharma collaboration.
The Trick To Serendipity
Though all of the speakers shared experiences of creative collaborations, the real lesson comes from Xander Wessels. Why wait for serendipity to happen at an airport. Instead, encourage and support employees to create and host an event. Get the help of organizations such as the HBA to attract key opinion leaders so as to bring opportunities for serendipity to happen within the four walls of your company. This is what Wessels and DSM does. Perhaps you should too. You never know what type of creative collaboration might result.
Please share the most creative collaboration with which you have been involved and what you learned.