Unite and ‘impera’ (that cliff)

Isn’t it time we flipped around the old ‘divide and impera’ (‘divide and conquer’) strategy attributed to the Romans and used for centuries to assert dominance? (The correct Latin term for “unite” might be “iungo”, but you get my gist). While the strategy has pretty effectively helped many generals and emperors take over large pieces of our world’s map, I am proposing that it is also the single most important reason for which most major empires have ultimately failed, being reduced to history book chapters or precious relics needing the controlled environment of museums to survive… This should not remain a history book story, but a living lesson for today’s world.

Now, fast forward to what is happening in the pharmaceutical industry today, where several companies that have dominated the world of pharmaceuticals, not unlike the great empires with their own achievements, territorial claims and peculiar corporate cultures are marching toward the “patent cliff”. The causes for what I believe is essentially a pharma innovation problem could fill in many posts. The current pharma model is increasingly more analyzed and scrutinized and thought to be unsustainable. Every day brings new stories that have created for me the vision of  a pharma’s “python phase”. To feed their draining pipelines, many companies ingest and digest consecutive boluses, M&A, expansions and cuts, which constantly inflate and deflate their bodies. What I decided to do here is to simply summarize how observations I made from a completely different situation – to me, a great way to learn! – may hold clues about other powerful strategies to survive life-or-death challenges.

I have recently learned about the practical and harmonious solution to survive the extreme challenge of the frigid waters in the Bay area during my recent visit at the Dolphin Club, a swimming and boating club in San Francisco. I have already raved elsewhere (Sports-inspired life and business lessons“) about my admiration for its members who challenge the frigid open waters of the bay. If I had to summarize in only two points what was needed to survive those waters from an individual perspective, it would have to be: 1) cross-training and 2)… being “Zen”! But I also learned fascinating things about the strategy that constitutes the basis of the club and about its inner functioning from Reuben Hechanova, the current boat captain and upcoming 2011 president of the club. Everybody has to share learnings such as hypothermia classes and to regularly work together to maintain the wooden boats, even if they are not rowing them, as one day they may save their life. While touring the club one of the returning rowers reported to Reuben having had a “fantastic” row! “I had the opportunity to save a swimmer who was beginning to experience hypothermia”. These people not only share the waters (politely giving way), but they closely collaborate to successfully conquer them. For instance, I learned that for long swims, the club members move in a well-orchestrated formation, again reminiscent of the Roman’s tactics, with the swimmers in the middle surrounded by small boats, while all being flaked by the bigger wooden boats protecting from them from the potential impact of passing tankers and being ready to take back to safety anyone succumbing to hypothermia. In my many years as a rower, I had never come across such tight symbiotic collaboration between swimmers and boaters. I believe the reason is that I do not know of any other place that chose to deal with such an extreme challenge: normally rowing clubs have rules that require members to stop operating when the water temperature gets too low to be comfortable for swimming (to prevent hypothermia in case the rower accidentally falls into the water). Most outdoor swimming facilities close even earlier in the year! But, what is one to do in San Francisco, where the temperature of the Bay waters is never warm enough for most people to comfortably swim in it? Here, some people choose to jump into frigid waters and seem to love it, but not before having a survival strategy in place that capitalizes on the close, symbiotic, collaboration between rowers and swimmers. Rowers need to be able to withstand swimming if needed, swimmers need to be able to rely on or become rowers should one need to be saved from hypothermia.

Just had a great row... saving a swimmer!

So here are the three main points I derived from my recent visit about how collaborations may work for survival:

1. Goal/Need to conquer the same domain/major challenge, e.g., the frigid open waters.

2. Have complementary strengths: some are experts at moving inside the water, some over it.

3. Should share enough trust, knowledge, and capabilities to be able (and willing) to jump to the rescue or even into the other’s shoes, in this case, at the drop of an oar!

Also based in San Francisco is the UCSF. Last week, a press release announced a major common effort with Pfizer, which is expected to lose exclusivity for world’s largest ever earning drug, Lipitor, in exactly one year from now . The waters below that patent cliff might be very frigid indeed! We applaud this trend, it may produce some of the greatest example of ‘unite and impera’ our common global challenge: developing new therapeutics to address the unmet medical need. Let’s see, do the other, sports-inspired lessons apply? Do the two partners have different strengths? Check: academia excels at the “fuzzy” innovative front end of life science discoveries, while pharma’s strength is the late stage development and commercialization of therapies.

And, how about the third lesson: How much do pharma and academia share in terms of trust, knowledge, and capabilities? More and more facilities that are appropriate for drug development are becoming available, either “for hire”, being used by or built for academia’s and other self starters’ use. Mind you, several have been deserted specifically due to pharma’s budget cuts, including Pfizer’s own site demise in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and many are operated via new government programs. Do I dare say the major lasting dividing problem remains the lack of trust and knowledge sharing, not only of intellectual property (IP) per-se, but even that of common “know how” of drug development. A better shared understanding of “what” and “how” to develop a new medicine will only increase our common ability to conquer diseases. This knowledge, “as good as gold”, could be as enabling as the precious coins made of it, or, if not shared, will remain as elusive as the buried treasures of a lost pharma empire.

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Where do you find ‘happy scientists’? and what makes them feel that way?

Great quality life sciences fuel medical innovation, but great science usually requires “happy scientists”. Where are they now, and what can we learn about that makes them happy? Are they different from other people?

From the beginning I need to say that I can’t claim to have the definitive answer to this question. However the subject has been interesting to me as an educator and manager of scientists, and here are some personal comments triggered by looking at the 2009 surveys published by ‘The Scientist’, a magazine specializing in the life sciences, as well as other independent studies I had found on the overall topic of work and personal happiness. In case you can’t tell, these contain information that pertains to the factors that make scientists (and other working people) happy…

In their 2009 annual survey of “Best places to work” in academia, they listed the ‘top ranked 40 places’ in US and the ‘top 10 ranked internationally’ (you can see their surveys and methodology here). As someone with a scientific background would instinctively do, as soon as I saw data, several potential explanations immediately came to my mind (as well as more questions, that generated hypotheses I think would be nice to test…) But let me start with the data collected and made widely available thanks to ‘The Scientist.’

What makes an institution a great place to do science?
Venture some guesses? I will make the assumption that overall the responders’ sense of satisfaction for their place of work is related to its listed strengths. Those most often cited by all top ranked 40 US academic institutions were: ‘Research resources’ and ‘Infrastructure and environment’ (17 times each), also ‘Job satisfaction’ (11 times) and ‘Teaching and mentoring’ (9 times).

At my very first inspection, as one would expect, what caught my eye were places I am very familiar with (two of my previous home institutions). More specifically, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia made the list within the top 5 (at #5), while Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, MA came in at #39. The strengths listed for Emory were ‘Peers’ and ‘Job Satisfaction’, while for Brigham and Women’s these were ‘Management and Policies’ and ‘Infrastructure and Environment’.

Interestingly (I think) the ‘Pay’ category is cited as a strength only for 10 out of the top 40 institutions, and only once in the top five (University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, OK). Furthermore, the specific example that struck me when looking at the other survey about salary levels, was the observation that the average pay in the state of Georgia is lower compared to other US states, with the sole exception of the state of Ohio. Of note, another Georgia institution, the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, GA also made the top 40 list in 2009, at #14. Again, I’m making the assumption that the “happy customers” of the first survey were the same with those paid less than the average US academic pay (a ‘side thought’ that came to mind was: ‘they might become less happy after seeing this US salary survey!’). Thus, based both on overall weight and the specific case, the pay per se did not seem to dampen scientists’ enthusiasm (at least not for these two GA work places!) One factor that was important was “job satisfaction”, which might be harder to define, yet there is information available on what motivates people and makes them feel they had a “great work day” (including later in this post).

Also, worth noting are the specific reasons for which some institutions are top and/or climbed really fast in the ranking. The institution ranked as #1 in the US, is Princeton, very small with only 203 full-time life scientists, which helps foster – indeed forces! – interdisciplinary collaborations/relationships. Max Planck’s Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Germany which ranked as the top institution internationally, also encourages strong cross-field collaborations and social interactions between scientists, strongly supported by their unusually democratic leadership system. Interestingly a common theme that lifted the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in the US ranking from 30th to the #4 place and brought the University of Groningen (in the Netherlands) directly at #4 in the ‘top 10’ world-wide, was their focus on recruiting and supporting young talent.

Thus, the 2009 survey results seem to be consistent with the fact that scientists are happiest when they are able to do the best possible science. This requires not only passion, curiosity, resilience, dedication, hard work, from the researchers themselves, but also a supportive environment, specifically enabling interdisciplinary collaborations through appropriate institutional policies and infrastructure. Hopefully administrators, regulators, and others with the power to influence the enviroment (of universities and other science-driven institutions) are paying attention to this type of feedback.

Do these findings surprise you in general/ do you work in any of these places? Any additional insights?

What makes people happy with their work in general?
This refers to the ‘job satisfaction’ definition, but also to the question whether things that make scientists happy are any different from those important to other professions?

For instance, the results of these scientists’ surveys seem to challenge the conclusion that ultimately “work IS about money”, as Susan M. Heathfield had drawn from her own research about what motivates people at About.com Guide, yet they likely do not surprise many of us. We all know many great (even if not famous) scientists who think more about giving through their work, rather than obtaining something from it, unless one would say they obtain the satisfaction of being able to figure out things that will ultimately “save the world”? Ms. Heathfiled does indicate – seemingly in an effort to recognize that some people have different motivation that: ’Some people work for love; others work for personal fulfillment. Others like to accomplish goals and feel as if they are contributing to something larger than themselves, something important. Some people have personal missions they accomplish through meaningful work. Others truly love what they do or the clients they serve. Some like the camaraderie and interaction with customers and coworkers. Other people like to fill their time with activity. Some workers like change, challenge, and diverse problems to solve.” Nice summary of why most scientists do their work, don’t you think?

An older theory known as the “Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory”(or the “two factor theory,”) suggests that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction are determined by different factors. This already indicated that the salary per se is not a positive motivator, but rather a “hygiene” factor.

1. Factors that are work ‘motivators’ include challenging work, recognition, responsibility which give positive satisfaction, which arise from intrinsic conditions of the job itself, such as recognition, achievement, or personal growth.
2. The work ‘hygiene factors’ which Herzberg suggested do not trigger positive satisfaction, are related to the work environment (e.g., company policies, supervisory practices, or wages/salary), and not necessarily related to the work itself, include: status, job security, salary and fringe benefits. However their absence leads to dissatisfaction, hence the name “hygiene” (its absence is hazardous).

What defines a ‘great work day’?
A Harvard Business Review study published in the latest issue (Amabile, T. M., Kramer, S. J “What really motivates workers”, HBR Jan-Feb 2010) concluded that the biggest factors in defining a workday as great was the perception of “making progress” and collaborations.

The authors underline the important role of the manager in making workers feel they had a great day. In the scientific slang, in an academic, as well as biotech/pharma laboratory, this personal might be refered to as the Principal Investigator (PI).

What a leader/manager should do:

• Clarify goals
• Use glitches as learning moments
• Cultivate a culture of helpfulness, including rolling up own sleeves to pitch in
• Recognize real progress (otherwise praise loses value)

The top three things a manager should avoid doing:

• Changing goals autocratically
• Being indecisive
• Holding up resources

What makes people happy: common denominators and “diversity” in happiness

This is not off the topic, but it’s rather considering the whole person’s “happiness” as a combination of personal and professional aspirations.

In studying how personal/individual factors contribute to the overall human feeling of happiness, another report revealed that in fact both women and men share the two main sources of happiness: achieving professional/financial aspirations and… being married! (Plagnol and Easterlin, the Journal of Happiness Studies). These authors also discovered an inter-relationship between gender and age and happiness. Their conclusion was that… “Women end up less happy than men” because they feel less able to achieve their life goals. Women begin life happier than men but the difference wears off and by 48 yo, men are in average happier that women. Here are some age milestones that stood out from the gender comparison:
o 41: Age at which men’s financial satisfaction exceeds women’s financial satisfaction
o 48: Age at which men’s overall happiness exceeds women’s overall happiness
o 64: Age at which men’s satisfaction with family life exceeds women’s satisfaction

Harvard experts cited by Physics.org suggest the following rounded approach is most likely to create overall (lifelong) happiness:

• Eat thoughtfully, exercise often, have daily ‘quiet’ time,
• raise your children well, teach them to be kind!),
• stash a few bucks away,
• and ‘stop thinking it’s all about you! ‘ Giving money away creates lasting happiness compared to spending it on oneself which only creates a ‘buzz’, the kind of happiness that wears off quickly

What makes working couples happy?
Sharing responsibilities for paid (professional) and unpaid (house chores) work apparently works well in making working couples happier and more productive. For more insights see “Power couples”, The Scientist 2010, Volume 24 (1): 55.

What makes YOU happy?

 

References:
• ‘Best Places to Work 2009: Academia’, The Scientist Volume 23 (11) Page 43, 2009-11-01
• Heathfield, Susan M. ‘What motivates people’, About.com http://humanresources.about.com/od/rewardrecognition/a/needs_work.htm
• The ‘two factor theory’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivator-Hygiene_theory
• Plagnol, Anke C. and Richard A. Easterlin, “Aspirations, Attainments, and Satisfaction: Life Cycle Differences Between American Women and Men.” 2008, Journal of Happiness Studies, http://www.springerlink.com/content/4j11681jx415315k/
• Wiens Carl, ‘Power couples’, The Scientist 2010, Volume 1: 55, 2010-01-01

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Innovating for the human body

Life sciences and medical practice have made tremendous advances, creating the opportunity for great medical innovations that will allow us to cure most major diseases, and live healthier, longer lives. Yet, what is known as the “unmet medical need” continues to outweigh our capacity to find viable solutions.

What are the major, maybe specific, challenges that confront this type of innovation? My take is that the best chance to come up with solutions will come from genuinely seeking to understand all points of view and by working together to overcome barriers amongst the major stakeholders in the process, a fine example of “constructive interference”.  Reportedly a similar view was recently publicly expressed by Andrew von Eschenbach, the outgoing head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Miriam Hill cited him on philly.com saying: “the drug industry will have to break down the walls not only between competitors but between big drug companies, smaller biotechnology firms and medical-device makers. The era of personalized medicine will require diverse types of companies to cooperate to generate solutions for patients, acting more like a team than individuals focusing on their own products. ‘They’re all playing golf,’ he said. ‘They need to play basketball.'”

At the upcoming Biotechnology International Conference, BIO2009 I had proposed and will be facilitating an interactive discussion between representatives of major stakeholders on the topic of: “Fast forwarding life science innovation: what works, what doesn’t, where do we go from here”. Meanwhile I am seeking to gain a better understanding of different points of view through this blog.

To get started, I will offer several perspectives on the current challenges I have gained from the different standpoints I came across during my work in the area of life science innovation, and as a user/consumer of medical products. Check the accompanying postings following this one. Hopefully they will be stirring enough, please do interfere!

The other posts regarding various perspectives: consumer, scientist, developer, investor, can be found by clicking on the BIO2009 category/tag under this post or in the tag “cloud” on the right hand side menu.

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