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© 2022 MJH Life Sciences and Pharmaceutical Executive. All rights reserved.
© 2022 MJH Life Sciences™ and Pharmaceutical Executive. All rights reserved.
Michael Ku, VP of global clinical supply at Pfizer, shares insights for the c-suite as well as reveals behind-the-scenes insight into Pfizer’s ability to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine swiftly.
In this Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association (HBSHAA) Q&A, Michael Ku, VP of global clinical supply at Pfizer, explains the secret behind Pfizer’s ability to deliver a COVID-19 vaccine to the world in record time.
HBSHAA: What advice would you recommend to leaders and/or the c-suites as they strive for their bold moves in 2023?
Ku (Pfizer): To deliver on bold moves, you need to have an organization that has a purpose-driven culture with a focus on innovation and to also establish a digital strategy.1
When I began leading our global clinical supply team more than ten years ago, we had a patient-first culture and established our digital clinical supply chain strategy in 2014, which served us well during the pandemic.
Additionally, we partnered with Harvard Business School professor, Linda Hill, to deploy her culture/innovation tools to learn where areas of opportunity existed in our organization, one of which was ensuring decisions were made with agility at the appropriate level of the organization.
HBSHAA: Can you elaborate on the Harvard Business School case that describes how digital technologies were leveraged in the recent COVID-19 journey?
Ku (Pfizer):We knew that we would have to leverage innovative ways of working to be able to deliver a vaccine and antiviral medication with velocity and that digital technologies would play a major role in this effort. As we looked for ways to remove the whitespace from our processes, we quickly realized the value that digital dashboards and analytics brought to this effort.2 Most notably, digital technologies allowed us to learn from hindsight, insight, and foresight by enabling data informed decision-making. Throughout our digital transformation journey, which began in 2014, we developed an awareness that we were creating not only best practices, but next practices.
HBSHAA: What key aspects of Pfizer’s journey allowed the company to produce the COVID-19 vaccine so quickly? Can you elaborate further on any key aspects of this journey that made the “impossible possible”?
Ku (Pfizer): In addition to a purpose-driven culture with an emphasis on innovation and a digital strategy, it was critical that we at Pfizer had the right mindset to help our global clinical supply chain team be successful. These five mindsets helped us to deliver the COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral medication, PAXLOVID.
Those five mindsets3 can be summarized as follows:
Dr. Michael Ku is the VP of global clinical supply at Pfizer. Prior to this role, Ku was VP of clinical pharmacy research services at Genzyme. Ku received his doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Services University as well as a master's degree in business administration from Anna Maria College.He also holds a bachelor of science degree in toxicology from the University of Toronto and is a graduate of the general management program from Harvard Business School.
Michael Wong is an emeritus board member of the Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association.
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