Andrew Witty, CEO of GSK and President of EFPIA “on the future of pharma collaboration to help poor countries” in The Guardian
01.02.12
Today, you will be able to read some words from Andrew Witty, CEO of GSK and President of EFPIA, in Sarah Boseley’s Global Health Blog from The Guardian.
Following the recent announcement of 13 pharma companies uniting to combat 10 neglected tropical diseases, Sarah Boseley asked Andrew Witty “to expand on this new spirit of collaboration among billion-dollar companies that used to fight tooth and nail”.
As Andrew Witty said:
“We basically decided a little over a year ago that the NTDs [neglected tropical diseases] was an area where we could make some impact, get some traction. (…) I think you are beginning to see a shift in the industry. I think this won’t be the end of it.
So, for example, you might have opening up IP today – we and others are opening up more compound libraries for more research into difficult disease areas. We can be more flexible in the business model than the industry has been historically. It doesn’t mean the industry can’t compete but we can do things a bit differently.”
I think this is reinforcing for all the CEOs that there are sensible areas where we can work together for the public good, for society’s good. We can still compete like crazy in other areas, but there are areas where we can work sensibly together and, guess what, there are also changes to the business model which allow us to be successful in areas which have historically been very difficult.
To read the full text on Sarah Boseley’s blog, click here.
