IN SO MANY WORDS

Allergan’s Brent Saunders and David P. LeCause

In So Many Words is a succinct, timely talk with a need-to-heed KOL.

David P. LeCause

Brent Saunders

David P. LeCause, Allergan’s Business Unit Head and vice president for US Eye Care sales and marketing, has been with Allergan, and thus in eye care, for 25 years. Advanced technological and treatment changes in eye care health “have raised the bar for everybody” to deliver better treatments and new technologies on a regular basis.

His CEO and soon to be president and COO of Pfizer plc, Brent Saunders, is good with that plan. Since 2011, Mr. Saunders has held the corner office at Bausch + Lomb; Forest; Actavis. “I can tell you with a very high degree of confidence that this merger will be great for the eye-care community.”

OM: With so many companies competing in the ophthalmic space, how does one company stand out, and how will your merger with Pfizer help do that?

Brent Saunders: The formula for standing out in eye care is simple, but hard to implement. It’s innovation and customer service. We are in the strongest position for both. Our R&D budget will be approximately $9 billion and eye care will [receive] a good portion.

OM: You have a JD and MBA; how did you land in pharma?

BS: After law school I went into consulting and then into industry.

OM: What did this non-traditional route add to your rise? What did it add to the leadership role?

BS: I joined industry in 2003, at Schering Plough from Price Waterhouse Consulting. Two things helped me. One, I had a lot of different experiences, so I understood how many [diverse] companies either did things or what attributes in their culture I thought important.

And second, the reason I did quite well at consulting is because a consultant, to be successful, has to surround [himself] with really talented people. The product is your peoples’ talent.

When you come into a pharmaceutical company, sometimes talent gets put in second or third place. But I’ve always put talent in first place, because that’s how I was trained. And when you have great talent, good things happen.

OM: You also believe in open science, having an agnostic view and tapping into the ecosystem. How will Pfizer embrace these concepts?

BS: I’ll be joining the world’s largest pharma company, and playing a significant role. I’ll be on the board of directors, its company president, and its chief operating officer, so I’ll have commercial responsibilities for the entire organization. I will have manufacturing, strategy and some R&D reporting to me.

So I can tell you with a very high degree of confidence that this merger will be great for the eye-care community. We will continue to invest in R&D, continue to do the things that made Allergan so successful in the past, in terms of commitment to medical education, to research and in supporting the ecosystem. And we will continue to deploy an open-science type of formula, but now complemented by a very deep, experienced, resourced discovery unit. Together, it has the potential to change how we think about solving unmet medical need.

In time, it might allow us to expand our thinking … to looking for cures for disease. While that’s a bit futuristic, that is one of our goals for eye care.

OM: Many new companies out there have great ideas: what is your plan in dealing with them?

BS: In the short term, the goal of this merger and integration, with respect to eye care, is about maintaining and improving the status quo. With 17 programs in mid- to late-stage development in R&D … we plan to maintain those activities and continue to improve our ability to invest in those opportunities.

David P. LeCause: Our approach has been to build out a suite of offerings, including acquiring a best-in-class MIGS with AqueSys.

BS: But over the longer term, we would like to direct more R&D resources toward eye diseases and unmet need … by building deeper discovery capabilities, and [then] we’d like to shift the paradigm from treatment to cures.

As for the bright entrepreneurs and innovators in eye-care, that’s what makes the eye care community so special. And when they need to take their idea to a company … to get something over the finish line, we want to be that partner of choice.

OM: So your door is open?

BS: Not only my door, but my e-mail and Twitter account are readily available to anyone with a good idea!

DL: Ophthalmology is an innovative segment. It’s one of the few areas in medicine that is a nice blend with industry, physicians, venture capitalists and start-ups. It’s an ecosystem that is very complementary … and more intimate. … I don’t know why, but it attracts some of the best talent. For those of us who spend a lot of time in it, we want to continue to evolve and grow.

OM: What about adherence?

BS: I think adherence is critical, not only in eye care, but in many areas. Take statin therapy .... we know with absolute certainty that if those patients with high cholesterol [would be adherent], many of them would eliminate their heart disease.

We need as an industry to continue to innovate to improve adherence. That may be through sustained-release or different drug delivery techniques, it may ultimately be with our XEN Gen Stent or bimatoprost SR program to more permanently [alter] or change the paradigm in terms of putting a drop in your eye multiple times a day.

DL: This sustained release platform complements our eyedrop line, and addresses key issues that we hear from physicians, about patient [non]adherence and patients losing vision. … [While] it’s great that we have a solution for that, we can’t stop there … we can’t rest on our laurels. OM