Pharma and biotech scientists and business leaders “attended” the 90-minute conference from the comfort of their own offices and meeting rooms, dialling in to listen over the phone while viewing the slides on the Web.

Windhover, known for its analysis and commentary on the health care business, organises these audio conferences as part of its R&D Leadership Series. “This audio conference was a clever way for us to reach potential biotech partners and bright, young PhDs without the necessity or cost of travelling. It’s both efficient and effective,” said Dr Lundberg.

Productivity and partnering

Dr Lundberg’s talk, titled “AstraZeneca’s Evolution: What It Means for Productivity & Partnering,” was structured around these themes:

• The strategy for our Discovery Research, including projects that tackle the underlying cause of disease instead of just symptoms
  
• Our deliberate effort to enrich the portfolio with biopharmaceuticals
  
• How the strategy is paying off in the early development portfolio, with delivery against goals for everything from candidate drug nominations and validated targets to obtaining early proof of principle and concept in man that are more predictive of clinical outcomes

Dr Lundberg also emphasized the cultural factors that make AstraZeneca's Discovery Research stand out from the crowd. “Global working is working,” he said. “Our staff know where to find global best practice examples and are empowered to apply this knowledge locally.” He mentioned not being fussy about where ideas come from and encouraging ‘intrapreneurial’ behavior by rewarding innovative delivery of agreed targets. Another distinguishing characteristic, he said, is valuing high quality science and criteria that yield a lower risk portfolio. “Our self-imposed, high quality standards mean that we must have dedicated high-caliber staff who recognise all research initiatives must ultimately be aligned to a drug-hunting projects’ needs.”

'Lab euphoria' creates drugs

Summing up the AstraZeneca Discovery Research culture, Dr Lundberg emphasized that ‘lab euphoria’ creates drugs. “Any lab-euphoric scientist wishing to join us will be pleased to spend most of their time in the laboratory,” he said. “We strongly disapprove of meetings for meetings’ sake, and we work hard to cut out bureaucracy wherever we can.”

From the Q&A session, it was clear that biotech was well represented in the audience, and they were interested in learning more about partnering with AstraZeneca. Dr Lundberg referred to both the Abgenix partnership and the alliance with Cambridge Antibody Technology that was recently announced. With two major partnerships underway, AstraZeneca has proof of its ability to make major deals-and its commitment to using large molecule therapeutics to complement its strengths in small molecule treatments.

Published 10 January 2005