Pfizer Making a difference in patients' Lives - STA Communications

The Primary Care
Business Unit of
Continues to Make a Difference in the
Lives of the People They Touch
Tell us about the career
path that led you to your
current position at Pfizer
Canada.
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Ihold a Diploma in Business
Administration and a BSc in
Biochemistry, both from
McGill University in Montréal.
The first five years of my career
were in the sales division of
Warner-Lambert Canada’s Parke-
Davis pharmaceuticals business. I
then spent two years in marketing
and one year as Manager, Customer
Satisfaction, a Total Quality
Management Initiative. In 1994, I
became a member of the Parke-
Davis Canada Management Team
as Director of Precision Marketing.
One year later, I was appointed
National Sales Director.
I began at Pfizer Canada in 2000
in conjunction with Pfizer’s acquisition
of Warner-Lambert, and I
assumed the position of Director
of Sales for the Québec region and
accountability on the cardiovascular
portfolio, nationally. In 2003,
the Atlantic region was added to
my sales responsibilities. During
my tenure as Sales Director, I had
the opportunity to play a key role
Allen Van der Wee,
General Manager,
PCBU, Pfizer Canada
in several major company initiatives,
including Field Force Effectiveness,
the creation of the
Cardiovascular Resource Division
and the Cardiovascular Leadership
Team, and the introduction of the
Account Managers’ role. I joined
the Pfizer Canada Leadership
Team in June, 2004. I became
Vice-President, Business Technology
and later on, Vice-President,
Strategic Business Solutions.
In April 2007, I was appointed
Vice-President, Sales, before
being appointed to my current
position in 2012.
Two minutes with
Mr. Allen Van der Wee
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If you could
eliminate one thing
from your daily
schedule what
would it be?
Administrative duties at
work and household
chores at home. If I could
magically get them done, I
would be the happiest man
on earth.
If you could have a
starring role in one
film already made,
which movie would
you pick and why?
Fred MacMurray’s role in
Follow me, Boys! Being a
good father and doing
good for the community
is all I hope to achieve in
life.
Canadian Pharmaceutical Marketing l April/May 2013 7

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What is the most
unusual food you’ve
ever eaten?
Fish in a traditional
Chinese restaurant. It
just does not taste the
same when it is looking
at you.
EpiPen ® Television Commercial
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If you were to
compete in the
Olympics, what
would your event be
and why?
What are the benefits of
dividing Pfizer into five
business units?
In the current context with many
products experiencing a loss of
exclusivity, our business has been
benefitting from the global structure
of dividing the company into
business units, which has provided
an additional level of focus.
This focus provides the required
accountability to move research
projects forward in partnership
with the business by having research
and commercial operations
working closer together.
Also, each business unit caters to
the needs of different customers,
and our structure allows us to
have an offering, which matches
the expectations of our customers.
Obviously, the business
model for new, innovative medicines
needs to change once these
products face generic competition.
Another advantage is that
each small team is closer to its
customers than in the old model,
and this allows for better
decision-making and resource
allocation.
What impact has the
introduction of generic
versions of NORVASC ®
and LIPITOR ® had on
your business model?
LIPITOR ® was the most successful
product ever in the history of
the Canadian pharmaceutical industry.
NORVASC ® redefined the
importance and value of blood
pressure control in the management
of cardiovascular disease.
Both of these products helped
Pfizer Canada become a leading
pharmaceutical company in this
country, and, as a result, patients
have had treatment options that
have helped them live better and
healthier lives. Along the way, we
have had the opportunity to
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Probably hockey. I love
team sports, and I love
hockey, although I was
never good at it.
If you could meet
any person, living or
dead, who would it
be and why?
Gandhi and/or Mandela. I
would ask them where
they found the strength
and resilience to endure
and forgive so much?
Have you ever had a
nickname?
Oscar and/or Tonio. Two
different nicknames for
two different periods in
my life.
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Canadian Pharmaceutical Marketing l April/May 2013

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Tell us something
most people don’t
know about you.
I almost drowned when I
was six-years-old. I was
stuck in a river whirlpool.
Nobody on the shore
could swim, except one
older boy, and when he
tried to come to my
rescue, he panicked and
almost drowned me. I
learned the importance of
being calm, patient,
and confident. We were
eventually rescued by a
boat.
What’s the one thing
you’ve done that you
never want to do
again?
Fight. It happened for a
short period of time when
I was young, due to my
size and physique, and I
truly regret those days.
What are the top
three items left on
your bucket list?
Honestly, I do not have a
bucket list. Although, I
would not mind having
the opportunity to be
a good, relevant
grandfather one day.
develop key learnings and insights
that we will continue to
leverage today and in the future.
We are very proud of our legacy!
This being said, our organization
today is very different and much
stronger than it was years ago.
There is no doubt that the end of
exclusivity for these two blockbuster
medicines marked the end
of an era for Pfizer and, I think,
for the pharmaceutical industry.
Clearly, our revenues have been
significantly impacted, and, as a
consequence, we have been
transforming ourselves into a
much more agile and productive
organization.
How has your business
model transformed in
response to the changing
pharmaceutical
environment?
The Primary Care health care environment
has been experiencing
significant reform. Increasingly,
decisions are being made, not
only by physicians, but also by
payers, governments, health care
authorities, and allied health
care professionals. Health care
practitioners are being asked
to practice differently: participating
in multi-disciplinary teams,
following a more complex algorithm
of therapies, and focusing
more on prevention and disease
management. These changes and
reforms are having a huge impact
on our customers and on their
environment. If we want to be of
value to our customers and stakeholders,
we need to be extremely
knowledgeable and respectful of
the changes that our customers
are going through.
Over the past few years, we have
been particularly focused on listening
to our customers and making
changes to reflect their needs.
These are exciting and challenging
times in primary care and in
the pharmaceutical industry.
Being part of an industry as a
leading pharmaceutical company,
we must take the opportunity to
redefine our value and our commercial
model in a way that will
allow us to tangibly participate
and contribute to the solutions
that will enable Canadians to live
healthier lives in a much more efficient
manner. At the same time,
our model must be a financially
sustainable one as well. It is important
that we reinvent how we
engage and partner with customers.
One key evolution in our
structure has been going from a
functional structure to a customer-centric
matrix structure.
We have developed new customer
marketing and multichannel
marketing capabilities
and redefined the traditional
marketing mix. One of the most
important transformations we
have been going through is how
our field personnel is charged
with meeting the needs of our
customers daily instead of conveying
a one-way promotional
message.
Canadian Pharmaceutical Marketing l April/May 2013 9

What innovations have
played a role in your
post-LIPITOR ® business
endeavors? Please
elaborate.
As mentioned above, our organizational
capabilities have evolved
significantly since the LIPITOR ®
era. The key innovations that have
facilitated our commercial transformation
are as follows:
1) Improving customer experience
is our approach to managing customer
relations. In other words, we
develop and manage customer relationships
and our overall approach
to the market to create
consistent, positive experiences for
our customers.
2) The second area of focus is the
development of our multi-channel
strategy and how we use technology.
We are establishing new digital
channels that will directly
complement our face-to-face activities
with customers and enhance
the overall value of our
offerings on a daily basis. Customers
are increasingly turning to
digital channels to obtain information,
which has an influence
on decision-making regarding
treatment options, as patients ask
for, and payers decide on,
specific treatments. For us, digital
marketing includes Emarketing;
Erepresentatives, self-directed edetailing,
webinars (medical education),
mobile devices, and account
management.
3) The last one is commercial effectiveness
where we must facilitate
the continuous productivity
enhancement of the PCBU organization
with key systems and
processes. The Big Blue Machine
has left a few heavy systems, and
we are working at making these
more efficient and retiring the
totally archaic ones.
What are some of your
key business objectives
and priorities?
Pfizer has a clear purpose: to innovate
to bring therapies to patients
that significantly improve
their lives. In order to do this well,
we have four clearly established
global priorities: Fix the innovative
core, enhance capital allocation,
be trusted by society, and
develop an ownership culture.
Locally, PCBU is touching upon
each of these four priorities by
working at creating a smaller,
agile, strong, and resilient organization
that continues to make a
difference in the lives of the people
we touch, while driving commercial
success. In doing this, we
are focusing on building the ability
to identify and capitalize on
growth opportunities and maximize
the success of our portfolio
by concentrating our efforts and
resources on strategic brands,
customer segments and geographies.
There can be no doubt
that we have been heavily focusing
on our newly launched
products: ELIQUIS ® and
TOVIAZ ® .
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In your high school
yearbook, you would
have been voted
most likely to…
what? Would you
care to elaborate?
Be a Team Lead. We were
a very large group of
friends, and I often
was one of the guys
organizing and/or hosting
events for the group.
Which do you prefer
Tim Hortons or
Starbucks, and why?
Timmies. It is Canadian!
When was the last
time you did
something for the
first time? What did
you do?
Last November, in
Australia, I paddleboarded
standing up in a
lagoon. With my size, I
thought that was a feat.
If you were to
suggest a question
for the next “Two
Minutes with […],”
what would it be?
Do you have any regrets?
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Canadian Pharmaceutical Marketing l April/May 2013

?
?
If you could give one
piece of advice to
your teenage self,
what would it be?
Appreciate every
moment, opportunity, and
challenge given to you, as
they will define who you
are and who you will be.
What was the best
piece of advice you
have been given and
from whom did it
come?
Respect and appreciate
the experience of those
that have lived before
you. I have been very
fortunate that my dad
drilled it into my head
when I was young, and it
has been at the core of
my evolution in life. Also,
I received the following
advice from my regional
manager in my first year
as district manager,
“What do you think the
stock price of the
company will be once you
come back from
vacation? Stop making
people crazy on your last
day and enjoy your
vacation; it will not make
any difference.”
You recently launched
TOVIAZ® and
ELIQUIS®. Can you tell
us more about these new
brands?
Indeed, we were fortunate to
launch two outstanding products
in 2012. Last December, Health
Canada approved the oral anticoagulant
ELIQUIS ® (apixaban)
for the prevention of stroke and
systemic embolism in patients
with atrial fibrillation (AF).
This is a product that we co-promote
with Bristol-Myers Squibb
Canada Co. ELIQUIS ® provides
a new treatment option for Canadian
patients with AF who
typically require life-long anticoagulation
therapy (blood thinners)
to lessen their increased
risk of a life-threatening or disabling
stroke. Due to Canada’s
aging population, AF is a growing
issue. It affects more than
350,000 people in our country
and increases the risk of stroke
up to five times! Unfortunately,
one-in-four Canadians over 40-
years-of-age will suffer from AF
in their lifetime.
We also had the pleasure of launching
TOVIAZ ® last spring. This
medicine is indicated for the
treatment of patients with overactive
bladder with symptoms of
urinary frequency, urgency or urge
incontinence, or any combination
of these symptoms. We are wellknown
in the therapeutic area of
overactive bladder, since we have
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been offeing DETROL ® to urologists,
GPs, and patients for many
years. Now, TOVIAZ ® offers a new
treatment option for these patients.
Overactive bladder is a condition
that affects one in five Canadian
women over the age of 35 and one
in seven Canadian men over the
age of 35.
What other new product
launches can we expect
in the next couple of
years?
Our pipeline includes many
product candidates in the area of
women’s health, pain, Alzheimer’s
disease, cardiology and respiratory
medicine, some of which are
in late stage development. At this
time, potential new product launch
dates for Canada remain to be
determined.
Canadian Pharmaceutical Marketing l April/May 2013 11

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What do you identify as
being the biggest
challenges to the areas
of marketing and sales in
the primary care arena?
I hope that you are not expecting
me to answer tighter compliance
rules, because, in fact, I strongly
endorse all the changes that have
taken place over the last few years
in order to ensure that we develop
a positive public image. Whether
we look at FCPA requirements or
at the Rx&D Code of ethics,
these programs have had a positive
impact on the way we do
business.
The biggest challenges that come
to mind are the availability of our
customers and their access to
treatments. Health care practitioners
are busier than ever and
have less time to dedicate to us.
We may also be paying the price
for those years when sending
multiple sales forces to promote
the same product was popular, so
there is a level of “fatigue” with
our industry being experienced
by some of our customers. We are
now trying to offer more value
and flexiblity to accommodate
and meet the needs of our
customers by offering relevant
and easier access to information
through our multi-functional
field and head-office resources
and through our digital platforms,
such as Esales or digital learning.
Payers are often limiting physicians
and patients’ choices
through reimbursement policies.
We have seen this trend for
awhile with public payers, but
private payers are now also introducing
cost control programs.
The critical challenge is that payers
are looking at medication
costs in isolation, and, unfortunately,
their vision of the holistic
value of primary care medicine in
the overall efficiency and quality
of health care is very limited.
Will the PCBU continue
to be a major contributor
to the overall Pfizer
business in future years?
Although the PCBU will not be
the leading revenue generating
organization over the next 5 to10
years, it will continue to be the
leading growth engine for Pfizer
Canada and a key contributor in
the transformation of the organization
and in the overall evolution
of the commercial model in the
Canadian health care market.
CPM
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Canadian Pharmaceutical Marketing l April/May 2013