At the beginning of the summer, I had the opportunity to join the team at Royalty Pharma for a great event at MIT (link here). It was an interesting time for me as I was thinking about the new role I was about to take at Bristol Myers Squibb. While I had certainly been “a leader” for several years now, I was pushing myself to think through and question my perspectives on R&D now that I was taking on increasing responsibilities as “the leader” of the research organization.
And so the presentation opportunity with Royalty really pushed me to articulate my views in a way that would hopefully resonate with and inspire others. I titled my presentation “Bullseye.Aim.Fire” and then renamed it “Increasing R&D Productivity to Deliver Transformational Medicines” so the topic would be more obvious. What I’m really sharing in the presentation is my fundamental belief about R&D, linking together several factors that I see as mission critical.
To me, it really all comes down to causal human biology. In order to be successful, we must understand the cause-and-effect relationship between perturbing a particular biological target with a medicine and the outcome that will then impact human physiology. I think this is achievable based on mutations that have occurred throughout human evolution. And there are other examples of causal human biology beyond germline or somatic cell genetics.
But, this is only part of the strategy. We must pair what we know about causal human biology with a strategy I call “matching modality to mechanism.” Today we have numerous therapeutic modalities to choose from when trying to fix an underlying disease. Drug discoverers of the past would be envious to see what we have at our disposal today. However having more to choose from doesn’t always make things easier. We must choose wisely, based on data and learnings, and of course generate more data to prove our hypothesis.
We have a lot to learn from causal human biology. And just as much to learn about the possibilities associated with all different kinds of modalities at our fingertips. How we combine these strategies will determine how successful we are. Ultimately, we want new medicines that are truly novel, that make a difference for patients beyond what’s available now. And we want to increase our probability of success through all stages of clinical development.
A key question: Do we have to choose between pursuing highly novel targets with transformational potential and programs that have an increased probability of success in clinical development? I don’t think we have to choose. I think we can do both!
So, I’m sharing the presentation in full – with some minor modifications – including all my talking points in the notes section (link here). I hope others find it as fascinating and thought-provoking as I do. If we get it right, we will look back one day and see this as an inflection point for drug discovery. I hope we do.
Bullseye, Aim, Fire!
Oh, and bonus question…can you figure out why I am wearing a Red Sox jersey in the photos below? My kids could not…and even after I told them, they did not think it was very clever. Oh, well. I tried.
