GlaxoSmithKline’s CEO is ‘out to change his industry’

Updated Aug. 17, 2009 at 5:32 a.m.

GlaxoSmithKline’s CEO is ‘out to change his industry’

Andrew Witty (GSK photo)

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – It’s safe to say that Andrew Witty is a change agent. So much so, in fact, that web site FiercePharma on Aug. 12 posed the following question: “Are you for real?”

No one among GlaxoSmithKline’s (NYSE: GSK) some 5,000 employees in the RTP area need to be told that Witty as CEO is making a host of changes at the international drug giant. But the media are still closely following and reporting on Witty, who also is making it clear that he wants to change the entire drug industry while at the same time pushing for reform and change in third world countries.

In his first year as CEO after assuimg the job on May 21, 2008, he has cut back on internal research and development, leading to some triangle area layoffs; he is more focused on partnering with such firms as Targacept in Winston-Salem and Pozen in Chapel Hill. He recently pushed GSK further into dermatology by acquiring Stiefel, which has a lab in RTP. But Witty has also sworn off making a big merger similar to others that have swept through the pharmaceutical industry.

Other aspects of his dizzying agenda were laid out in detail by the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper/

The Guardian newspaper went with Witty on a tour of Uganda (see video) and set up a visit for him to a mother struggling to make a living for her family who asked him for a sewing machine, not a handout. He promised to get her one.

The Guardian’s headline: “Andrew Witty: drug firm boss out to change his industry.”

After reviewing the article, FiercePharma wrote:

“If we had a chance to ask Andrew Witty one question, that question would be, ‘Are you for real?’ We've watched as the GlaxoSmithKline CEO has cut off its funding for CME [continuing medical education] programs [for doctors], promised to disclose its payments to doctors, limited its doc payments, donated 800 patents to an IP pool, promised to invest 20 percent of GSK profits into drugs for poor countries, and cut its prices for meds in the developing world.”

But as the Guardian article noted, Witty is doing more – much more.

Some highlights:

"People who work for the company really feel good about it because it is changing the way the place operates and the way we behave and hopefully more and more will align it with what communities and society expects of us." – Witty on efforts at “transparency” and “health in the developing world” as the Guardian described two areas.

"Whether it's an NGO [non-government organization] in Katine [Uganda], whether it's providing support for the homeless in Atlanta, or whether it's in the UK, when people spend six months working with an NGO they will come back with a broader view of the world, a more community view of the world, and I think that will change the culture of the company – for the good, actually." – Witty’s volunteerism program at GSK

"I'm not telling my managers you need to have your boxes on the shelves. What I'm telling our managers is we need to make sure we're doing nothing to get in the way of effective delivery." – Witty’s efforts to improve distribution in developing countries.

Other key points, as stressed by the Guardian:

“In February he initiated what he hopes will be the transformation of big pharma, so often excoriated for aiming its medicines at the rich sick and failing to help the far needier poor. He has cut the prices of GSK's medicines in the least developed countries to no more than a quarter of their cost in the UK, promised to reinvest 20% of his profits from those drugs to help those countries, put 800 patents on potential drugs or parts of drugs into a "pool" so anyone can investigate them to find cures for neglected diseases such as malaria, and invited scientists to share GSK's labs for such research in Tres Cantos, Spain.”

Plus, he told the Guardian he is open to the idea of licensing GSK drugs to generic rivals who are undercutting his company’s prices. He won’t even charge for the license, but he would require these firms to ensure quality and safety of the knock-off drugs.

Witty also said companies other than GSK and in other fields than pharmaceuticals should consider cutting prices in developing countries in order to help improve the lot of peoples’ lives/

The GSK’s agenda left FiercePharma impressed – but also a bit skeptical.

“So, Andrew Witty. Are you for real?,” concludes FiercePharma. “Or are you having us on, in a cynical attempt to polish GSK's image? We hope it's not the latter.”

Tags: Biotech & Life Science, GSK, Pozen

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