Role of a Pharma CEO

When you get right down to it, management is really just about dealing with people.

The role of a CEO can be boiled down to just four things:

1. Managing the company’s vision,

2. Hiring the right people,

3. Providing resources for those people, and

4. Removing the obstacles that prevent them from getting work done.

Today’s big pharma CEOs are great at the “vision” thing—but that’s the easy part. And most drug companies already have—or at least had—very talented people, because making a drug that betters the health of millions is a calling of great moral and ethical standing.

So all a good CEO really has to do is support those people and clear the path for them to work effectively. 

Here’s a positive suggestion: Instead of using biotech as a model, pharma CEOs should look to Hollywood for inspiration. The film industry long ago recognized that what is important is talent. No one can predict what will be a blockbuster (drug or movie), but Hollywood has at least recognized that movie-making is a talent-based industry.

Perhaps today’s pharma chiefs need to see themselves as latter-day studio heads—it’s possible they’d love that!—and come to the same conclusions.

Define the vision, get and keep the right people, stop making it harder for talented people to do their jobs, give them the time and resources to be creative. 

Then maybe, just maybe, they would start curing pharma.

(Abstract from the source: http://www.eyesopen.com/en/blog/what-is-really-killing-pharma | “What is Really Killing Pharma” by Anthony Nicholls | April 4, 2011)