Combating systemic racism in the biopharmaceutical industry

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In 1997, as the new Deputy Managing Director in charge of research and development at Hoechst Marion Roussel (which then merged with Rhône Poulenc Rorer to form Aventis, subsequently acquired by Sanofi), I introduced a number of changes. These changes were intended to take advantage of the diversity of approaches of the three companies, Hoechst, Marion Merrell Dow and Roussel Uclaf, to improve drug innovation. One of these changes has been the emphasis on common mechanisms of action. This has encouraged the profiling of new lead compounds in all relevant disease models, regardless of the geographic location or nationality of the scientist who originally synthesized the compound.

Later in 2000, with the announcement of the decryption of the human genome, we introduced chemical biology platforms, such as the Kinase, Protease, Ion Channels and GPCR platforms which further encouraged collaboration between the three discovery centers and university laboratories in the United States, France and Germany. These platforms were crossroads of multidisciplinary communities of practice through discovery centers and product realization (development).

Today, D&I’s business case is even more compelling. For example, in 2019, seventy percent of the 3,000 drugs in Phase III clinical trials were from small biotech companies.1

The 2017 annual reports indicated that only 10 of Pfizer’s 44 compounds in clinical development were from internal discoveries and only two of J&J’s 18 compounds were from their own labs. (STAT, Emily H. Jung, Dec 2020). In short, drug innovation is happening more and more frequently in small biotech startups and university labs.

How can large pharmaceutical companies improve D&I in their businesses?

First, every company must have the courage to make structural and organizational changes to promote fairness and opportunity for each of its employees. Equity must exist internally and characterize interactions with external stakeholders. Employees who feel they are not being treated fairly and have few opportunities to grow within the organization will be less motivated and less likely to create innovative solutions that inspire their peers.

Second, in addition to testing the consistency of rules and regulations with fairness, they should ask themselves three questions: What behaviors are rewarded? Who is promoted? And, are the criteria for rewards and promotions transparent and do they clearly give everyone the same chance to succeed? This approach should be the same as one tries to ensure that every contributor and innovative idea has the same opportunity to be seen and heard in a multinational company as in a US based organization with privileged groups.

Third, old excuses such as the pipeline of such individuals do not exist should be buried in the trash of history. The COVID pandemic has highlighted the known disparities in health and opportunity among underrepresented minorities. The paucity of black clinical researchers and the lower percentages of blacks participating in clinical trials were evident in this pandemic. This is especially striking given Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett’s contribution to the innovation of the Moderna vaccine and the well-known fact that trusted advisers are the best people to deal with vaccine hesitation. Large pharmaceutical companies can fill these gaps by creating collaborative research centers in certain HBCUs. They will narrow the gap of opportunity, as so poignantly identified by Kenneth Frazier, the only black CEO of a large pharmaceutical company, who recently retired as CEO of Merck.

Systemic racism will recede when equity and opportunity strengthen empathy and replace the use of stereotypes.

Dr. Frank L. Douglas, PhD, MD was previously a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he helped found the Center for Biomedical Innovation. From 2009 to 20015, he was President and CEO of the Austen BioInnovation Institute. In 2018, he published an autobiography, Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream.

Remarks

1. The changing landscape of research and development. IQVIA Institute for the Humanities of Medicines. April 2019, p. 15.

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