Innovation's impossible peak (5 minute read)

I wrote the start of various articles a couple of months ago but - along with acceptable haircuts - they were put on lockdown. This bank holiday weekend marks 2 months on from the official date of that (March 23rd if you've somehow avoided 5,000 weekly pub quizzes), so the topic of innovation seems fitting in such new, and for many, testing times.

One of the highlights of recruitment you may not think about is that a large proportion of our role is to host open discussions about the market with the very people working on the products, devices, software etc. that drives the headlines. The interest (and conversation) around these headlines is greater when that product or company is of interest to you, and recently the focus seems to have shifted in line with market changes, from your blockbuster drugs to the more specialist, novel products and exciting biotechs - prior to their big pharma acquisition. Far more than in most (if not all other) industries, the interest in healthcare is naturally driven by a passion for it; it's literally in our DNA to be interested in healthcare, especially the key scientific breakthroughs.

If a company isn't claiming to be innovative already they would surely at least want to be and as recruiters, we're often regularly asked to find someone who fits the ‘innovative culture and values', but asking what that looks like to them can get varied answers (or none at all).

Despite being excessively overused it still sounds attractive, but what does innovation actually mean?

Many of us immediately think of tech and it’s easy to throw out other buzz words that fall into that category – ‘digital’ is undoubtedly the most used of those - but do we need to be digitally savvy to be innovative? or are they just the first examples that come to mind?

It is almost our curiosity and determination within life sciences that creates innovation in its own right as we discover more to drive that change. From the decoding of the human genome in 1999, to genetically engineering T-cells 20 years on to reinsert back into patients, the combination between technological and biological science is surely a key driver.

But that’s a very macro view of it all, what about the individuals within each component of that? The ones who aren’t creating new generations of mice for the next immunology breakthrough, or developing the next A.I upgrade. What about innovation within the huge growth areas like insights and data? Or the marketing, sales, market access etc. teams?

For the 2 months of lockdown, I’ve been asking those in the UK pharmaceutical, biotech & consumer health markets, what does innovation mean to you?

Business Intelligence/Excellence specialists (ex/current AstraZeneca, Vertex, Leo Pharma)

"Innovation is being able to implement worthwhile changes more efficiently than others. Coming back to what the business is trying to do. Its that simple; can we be doing something more efficiently than anyone has done before? Simply put, can you ask the right questions and implement the solution? Implementation is the make or break"

"It’s systematic, and lies with the management. Encouraging ideas and allowing autonomy to implement those. I have done so many new things in my role, for example putting new strategies for advanced platforms and building capabilities with innovative data scientists not Excel experts. We are assessing various options at the moment, my role wouldn’t be innovative if I wasn’t allowed to be"

Digital Marketeers (Signifier Medical Technologies, Reckitt Benckiser, GSK)

"It’s a mindset, not a physical thing. It’s about the ability to try and to fail, and to learn from it, Innovation is a type of creativity; that alone comes in various forms"

"Innovation is not just just about new products, innovation is about new ways of reaching people. It could be just changing a product that already exists (for example the packaging, small changes). You can find a space to innovate even with your oldest product. At GSK we aimed to launch a major innovation every 3 years, but between those incidents we applied those principles to existing ranges too"

"Breaking out of the norm and creating niche ways of solving problems. Cross-functional teams breaking out of the usual hierarchy of assessing problems to encourage and implement different views. And from an external aspect too, external coaches bringing in new ideas and design thinking/growth mindset. From a recruitment perspective it can be achieved simply be hiring those outside the sector to bring in something new"

"Ongoing market changes and developments open up different capabilities and allow us new platforms to go places and communicate in ways we have not done so before - email marketing is dying, but being replaced by multiple new channels instead. A lot of pharma companies are behind in this but from a digital innovation perspective; integrating processes so that all channels integrate and talk to each other, using emotive analysis & face track recognitions within the campaigns as a way of engaging with customers via the product."

Project Managers, (Sandoz, Unilever, Allergan)

"Connecting people and allowing people to open up and have those discussions is important. Combining what’s possible on the market with real time involvement, keeping up to date with that market, the timing & participation of stakeholders from the start is important."

"In a very literal sense, it refers to the creation of new initiatives in line with what customers want. In a more theoretical sense, innovation is a structure that, through novelty, brings people closer. In a commercial sense - closer to the business. In terms of examples within the pharmaceutical industry? I’d say things like the ‘incubation’ structure at GSK, or Unilever’s ‘foundry’".    

Sales/Business Development (Tillomed, Kite Pharma & various healthcare/tech start ups)

"It's the understanding of doing things differently, through the use of various channels. Innovation is differentiating from the norm"

"It's the New, novel, best in class changes. Disruption to improve industry and forward thinking. The use of A.I in Oncology for example to solve accuracy problems & challenging the status quo. Technology enables this where nothing else can. It can often require a change of culture and hiring, but ultimately its about the new which is better = better results that solve the problems. It has to engage change and institute change, that normally means a different approach to hiring."

I'm fascinated by the idea of no limits to this. The very nature of innovation is it's own limitless concept, providing the limit is not enforced by pharma's well-known red tape - the bureaucracy that has created the gap between that and it's consumer health counterpart. As a take away from the above for myself though, the perception of this as a mind state combined with a systematic approach that encourages and allows innovation are major points. For all the talk of digital advances, it's often the start-ups and SME's that truly embed innovation into their culture without the red tape and so, it's fundamental that employees are given the backing to be innovative if the recruitment process asked for it.

Thank you to everyone who has taken their time out to have these talks and to read the above, your feedback is always welcome, as are any further opinions on the topic. For those who may wish to read any further articles I've written, click here to see the most recent of those or, stay tuned to my page in future. I look forward to speaking with you all soon either way, stay safe!