Day 1 - Alliance Management Congress 2009 - Cambridge Healthtech Institute

11:40

Effectively Conveying the Value of Alliance Management to Senior Management

Karen Denton, Director, Alliance Management, Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals

Aligning with Your Partner at the Project Team Level:
Trouble Spots and How to Overcome Challenges

Ailsa Mendez, Director, Project Governance, Functional Genetics

Changes in a partner’s corporate/business strategy will affect ongoing alliance programs. Conversely, internal reprioritization within a portfolio of projects will also affect alliance project teams. Alliance managers need to learn how to monitor these cues, assess the impact to the project and team and coach team members during a re-alignment process, in order that continued progress on milestones and deliverables are made. This presentation will show attendees how to assess a misalignment within the team due to shifting priorities, strategy, misunderstanding of contract language; how to address each challenge with the joint project team; and how to involve alliance management in senior level discussions to mitigate problems that could arise due to internal or external changes.

12:10

Effective Alliance Management: Supporting the Needs and Ambitions of Partners Through Thick and Thin

Annette Weissbach, M.B.A., Global Alliance Director, Pharma Partnering, Licensing and Alliance Management, Hoffmann-La Roche, Inc.

Roche has a long history of success through partnerships. We are a company that depends on great ideas and recognize that no one company has a monopoly on innovation, which is why we have established a pharma partnering function. Roche was an early innovator of the partnership model, recognizing the importance of alliance management to provide a consistent point of contact throughout a partnership, starting from the point of negotiating the deal. This presentation will provide insight into the positioning of the Alliance Directors within the partnering strategy at Roche. This strategy includes how Roche Alliance Directors ensure the success of their partnerships throughout the lifecycle, focus on developing innovative products where there is unmet need, tailoring creative deals, and ensuring partners have a place at the table.

How to Start an Alliance Management Function in your
Company – Factors to Consider and Pitfalls to Avoid

Rob Hockney, Ph.D., Director, Alliance Management, AstraZeneca

In this presentation, the presenter will draw upon his personal experience of establishing the Global Alliance Management Support Office in AstraZeneca. Attendees will learn factors to consider and pitfalls to avoid in establishing an integrated alliance management capability/function within an organization. Differences between an alliance capability and an alliance function will be discussed. Additionally, the presentation will explore the pros and cons of centralized and decentralized alliance management groups and address some of the issues around setting the expectations for your alliance management function and the metrics by which to measure them. Those looking to establish an alliance management function in their company will benefit from the experience of someone who has done this already and who will share with them both the key factors to consider and pitfalls to avoid. Those who have established functions in their companies already will be able to compare and contrast their own experience with those of the Speaker and to weigh views and recommendations presented against their own.

4:00

Pushing Alliance Management Skills and Capabilities to the Broader Organization

Michael O. Ransom, CA-AM, Operations Manager, Office of Alliance Management, Eli Lilly and Company

No pharmaceutical organization today has all of the internal competencies and resources required to cost-effectively bring innovative therapeutic solutions to patients; therefore, an integral part of the industry’s strategy should be to seek partnerships with other organizations across the value chain.  With this transformation comes new risks.  What does it take to move from a fully integrated to a more networked organization?  How can those functions and individuals now charged with managing strategic collaborations access and utilize alliance management skills and capabilities to deliver results?  What tools and techniques does it take to effectively build lasting and successful relationships between these new partners while creating additional value for all parties?  This presentation will explore these questions and share Lilly’s approach to the challenge, including some practical examples and learning from the journey

Impact of Personality on Success of Alliances

Tom Dyer, President, Executive Outcomes Consulting

In this presentation, we will attempt to expand the tools and approaches alliance managers have to create effective partner relationships.  In working closely with executives, it is becoming apparent that more of the problems - unhealthy responses - are created at the personality level and not from structures and processes. This talk provides examples of this and also introduces a technology to address these situations beginning at the personality level and then organically moving up into process and structure. Attendees will learn how addressing the process and personality levels simultaneously have produced dramatic business results. 

4:30

Navigating a Partner’s Organizational Structure - Approach to Decision Making and Executing Project Deliverables

Ailsa Mendez, Director Project Governance, Functional Genetics

Laurie Dubrovin, Senior Project Management, Product Portfolio Management, Genentech, Inc.

Sometimes keeping an alliance project on track may be less about the science and the joint project plans and more about understanding how and when decisions are made on a project and who makes them in both organizations. This talk will discuss how alliance managers in small biotech and large pharma firms navigate to achieve results.

Managing Alliances between Culturally Different Organizations

Jeremy Ahouse, Ph.D., Director, Alliance Management, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc.

Academia, Biotech and Pharma are increasingly collaborating. To do so well requires awareness of differences and the ability to cede some control as teams play to their strengths. We will discuss the importance of cultural fluency, common traps when working across corporate cultures, and ways to develop affinities that cut across common divides. Navigating across the interests and pressures different organizations face will help us understand how trust can be nurtured. The speaker has recently moved from biotech to big pharma and will reflect on the approaches of both.