3 Lessons From My First Year at Kite

It’s hard to believe, but this month marks one year since I joined Kite. The last 12 months have flown by at “Kite Velocity” – a breakneck pace fueled by a relentless determination to help patients. As you can imagine, this pace has only quickened over the past few months, as the global COVID-19 pandemic threw the entire healthcare ecosystem into overdrive.

As we face these obstacles head-on, we remain steadfast in our focus on the cure. Looking back on the past 12 months, I see so many important moments to celebrate – and so many lessons to absorb and apply long after we find our way back to a new normal. 

Here are just three of the many lessons I’ve learned from this past year:

1.    As an industry, we can accomplish incredible feats when we join forces: Since the very first days of the pandemic, the entire biopharma industry has mobilized, throwing its collective weight toward fighting the coronavirus. Biopharma companies have over 670 therapeutic compounds in development – from vaccines, to treatments, to antivirals. Our colleagues at Gilead have worked tirelessly to advance the development of an investigational treatment for COVID-19, and we’re inspired by the work they’ve done for patients. With so much intensity being channeled toward scientific breakthroughs, I’m confident that the many organizations, governments, and individuals involved in this fight will determine how to most effectively treat this virus and prevent others from getting it.

What’s more, the industry is working more closely with regulators to overcome COVID-related obstacles by conducting virtual inspections and employing other unprecedented measures – all while adhering to the highest quality standards. At Kite, staying in close, constant contact with our authorized treatment centers has also proved crucial, particularly as the pandemic increases the risks patients face when visiting a treatment center. Our authorized treatment centers have been essential to helping us ensure that we do not fail a single patient during this time, allowing us to quickly identify and help solve patients’ obstacles to safe, timely treatment.

By working closely with regulators and partners to solve problems in real time, we were able to bring our second CAR T therapy through FDA approvals and we continue to discuss upcoming approvals outside of the U.S. Additionally, we opened a new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Europe, which will bring CAR T to more patients, more quickly for years to come.

Visiting our European cell therapy manufacturing facility in Amsterdam last year

2.    To address complex problems like cancer, include more voices and keep the patient front and center: Without listening to the specific challenges patients have faced (and continue to face) during the pandemic, we may not have been able to adjust our protocols and processes. This is why the patient voice is so important in helping us achieve our goal of transforming cancer treatment, and it’s why we created our Patient Leadership Council to help inform our patient-related decisions as a company.

I’ve also learned that in order to drive transformation, you have to be willing to listen to perspectives that may have been overlooked in the past. As a company focused on the cure, we’ve always valued and respected the community oncologists who treat patients from the moment of diagnosis – they are the ones who send patients for CAR T consults that ultimately lead to therapy decisions. We’re deepening our partnership with these physicians and working to better support the oncologists’ needs.

A patient’s oncologist is deeply invested in their treatment path and understands their needs better than anyone. As such, the oncologist needs to understand how cell therapies like CAR T work, the potential risks, and how such therapies can offer hope to patients. We’ve launched several programs that aim to bridge such information gaps. The more that we can support the physicians who care for people living with cancer day in and day out, the better off patients will be – before, during, and after their treatment.

3.    In times of crisis, culture is more important than ever – and an entrepreneurial culture breeds innovation: When much of the world shifted to remote work, it quickly became clear that companies everywhere needed to double down on nurturing an inclusive and inspiring culture in a virtual world. The good news was that we were all in this together, and we were all learning, course correcting, and growing in real time. At Kite, we set out to make sure that our colleagues felt connected, appreciated, and empowered to keep growing in their careers. Whether it’s by hosting Zoom coffee chats, virtual leadership summits, or finding new ways to recognize our people who have gone above and beyond with new recognition programs, it’s clear that you can foster a fantastic culture even in a remote setting.

When you have a winning culture, you can drive innovation – even when the world feels at a standstill. Kite began in 2009 as a small startup with a bold mission to take on one of the world’s deadliest diseases. Over the course of 11 years, we’ve grown significantly, but we’ve always nurtured that startup spirit within our culture.

I witness this entrepreneurial spirit firsthand time and again: in the relentless approach our manufacturing team members took to transporting T cells during the height of the outbreak; in the ingenuity of our logistics and operations teams as they devised new shipping routes in the wake of flight cancellations; and in the boldness of every team member who raises their hand to share their ideas every day and take on additional responsibilities. With this entrepreneurial spirit, we can keep moving mountains.

If there’s one final lesson to be learned from this year, it’s that there’s no telling for certain what’s around the corner. That being said, what I do know is that we have to keep moving forward together. We must keep celebrating the wins, and we must keep learning from the challenges. When we do this right, there’s no limit to what can be accomplished.