Mourning the Loss of a Cancer Pioneer and Friend: A Letter to Jose Baselga

José,

I am so grateful to have been your partner for the past two years. When I learned you were joining AstraZeneca in January 2018, I knew I was about to work with somebody impressive. However, I had no idea, I was also about to embark upon a journey with someone so extraordinary.

At our first meeting, we quickly realized, we had much in common: an immense pride and joy from our children; a love for laughter and levity; a deep connection to Spain (yours of course much more profound than mine) and, very importantly, an unwavering commitment and dedication to helping cancer patients and revolutionizing cancer care. 

You championed the importance of being patient-focused - and always reminded our teams that: “there is no such thing as a cancer that is easy-to-treat”; “no patient cares about means and medians; because who wants to be average”; “rare cancers aren’t that rare”, and “they aren’t just ‘nuisance side-effects’ if you are the one suffering from them”. Every day I watched as someone reached out to you to ask for advice after being diagnosed with cancer or find out a loved one had received that news. You treated each person with compassion and always made the time to help.  

You acted every day with urgency and never settled for good enough. 

You were by no means perfect (he would have laughed at that), but you listened with openness to feedback; you acknowledged with empathy when you were wrong; you worked to adapt when you believed you need to change and you never shied away from a difficult conversation. In your words, you would “always yield to the best argument.” 

You recognized that talent and people are the only true source of competitive differentiation for an organization. Thank you for helping build a team at AstraZeneca with so many talented people – it is a joy to work alongside them every day. 

Thank you for speaking Spanish with me and making sure my proficiency with slang and swear words never faltered. Thank you for the dinners where we talked of partners, children and family - far more than work. Thank you for always making me laugh.

I will miss immensely coming to work alongside you every day. It was truly a privilege to call you, my partner.

One of José’s last notes to me read: “Never have I been more eager to be well and fight alongside you.” José was a fighter and this weekend the fight against cancer lost one of its fiercest opponents. I am confident José would want his passing to further galvanize our resolve to find its cure. Let us please, together, commit to making that a reality. 

With a very heavy heart,

Dave Fredrickson