The global pandemic affected a lot of things, but it did not impact your favourite life science podcast, Molecule to Market! In 2021 we recorded just as many, if not more, interviews than ever before – giving our listeners access to hours and hours of insightful interviews from some of the most respected leaders in the global pharma and biotech industries.
CDMO disruptors, industry & sales gurus, entrepreneurial scientists, passionate problem solvers and humble leaders – we’ve welcomed a myriad of guests this year to chat with our podcast host Raman Sehgal.
All of our guests have offered listeners fascinating insight into their experiences within the sector – including the interesting career paths they’ve taken along the way and the people and places that have influenced them. We’ve teased out information about their leadership styles, as well as their thoughts on topics including the talent agenda, mergers and acquisitions, opportunities and barriers and the effect of the pandemic on working culture, approach to EDI, recruitment and more.
Perhaps most interestingly, we asked guests to reflect on their careers, share the advice they’d offer to their 25-year-old selves, and reflect on whether they would do anything differently if they could start their journey in life sciences over again. The learnings are limitless; every interviewee brought their own unique perspective and their own take on what the future holds.
We’ve recently rewound and looked back over our catalogue of episodes to bring you the emerging themes from our 2021 interviews and a neat summary of our guests’ top insights, advice and predictions for the future.2022 and beyond.
So, let’s dig deep and summarise the emerging themes from a year’s worth of conversations with Raman!
Career paths & pivots
Admired leaders, guest speakers, successful entrepreneurs and business owners – our guests know a thing or two about the global life sciences industry. But what makes each guest so unique is often their career journey and the decisions (and chances) that brought them to the role they hold today.
Many of our guests started out from university and found jobs as lab technicians or bench scientists before moving into more senior roles, pivoting into sales and marketing or specialising in product development and research. The majority identify as lifelong learners, keen to continue their education throughout their career and to support changes in direction, with many confirming they constantly worked to learn to address their own weaknesses.
Life sciences certainly attracts academics, with lots of guests supporting academia well after their own graduations through collaboration, guest lecturing, work experience and research opportunities.
The sector is keen to develop the next generation of leaders and many guests spoke with passion about their support for grassroot programmes within communities, schools, colleges and universities to promote STEM subjects and to encourage young people from all walks of life to consider a career in life sciences and the pharma/biotech and healthcare space.
<<< Our recommended listen back
Episode 49, ‘The academic turned biopharma innovator’ with JaeB Kim from Samsung Biologics America.
See it to be it!
Our guests echo similar thoughts on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and are in collective agreement that the sector has a long way to go to improve EDI across the space, but that changes are taking place for the better.
Several guests spoke at length about EDI and the shifts in organisational change management – they discussed the renewed focus on improving culture and a drive towards being more inclusive being of paramount importance. They felt that change must be driven from the top down, but that EDI is an organisation-wide priority which everyone needs to have some responsibility for.
EDI cuts across organisations and encompasses everything from employer brand and how you hire, right through to line management, recognition processes and progression pathways. It also supports your entire operational ecosystem, involving everyone from your C-suite down, in addition to your suppliers, clients, networks and external stakeholders.
You can’t role model EDI if it doesn’t exist; you can’t meaningfully support people of different ages, from different races and backgrounds, or those with disabilities and alternative sexual orientations if you don’t have robust strategies in place to attract, retain, manage, develop and support people.
You can’t be it if you can’t see it.
<<< Our recommended listen back
Episode 46, ‘The unique general’ with Andrew Moore from Pfizer CentreOne.
Episode 41, ‘Creating a healthy culture’ with Jeff Dill from Vynamic.
Episode 52, ‘From Big Pharma to CDMO leader’ with Louise Duffy from Abzena
Go global
The world is smaller than we all thought, according to many of our guests.
If 2021 taught us nothing else, it’s that we can operate globally without stepping foot out of our front door. When the pandemic hit, all of our worlds got smaller; high flyers that once travelled the world for business, relocated every 18 months, and who thought nothing of catching the red eye for a morning meeting in one time zone before jetting off to another for a dinner appointment, suddenly found themselves working from home or a local office with just their their cell phone and video conferencing platform for company.
Once the novelty of the ‘new normal’ wore off, our guests, like many others, craved human interaction and in-person events. What they all agreed on, however, is that their working capacity grew and their ability to converse with teams across the globe increased. No longer bound by time in departure lounges, taxis or hotel rooms, our guests could talk to teams in different locations with speed and ease, opening up new working relationships, efficiencies and opportunities to access leaders whose availability suddenly opened up over night.
Connections also grew and deepened (when we weren’t accidently on mute!). Like the rest of the world, our guests got to know their colleagues and networks a little better; everyone enjoyed seeing other people’s home offices, meeting partners, pets and children, and allowing more of their real selves to be visible at work. Guests were reminded that ‘we’re all human’ and we all experienced the challenges of the pandemic together, knowing we were far from alone in our struggles. Human connections and trust grew, and our guests believed this was a positive thing that would continue well into the future.
According to our guests, hybrid working is here to stay – even the most traditional and old fashioned companies have stepped up and adapted to more flexible ways of working. The 9 to 5 was waning before Covid-19 arrived, but it feels like it’s a regime that really will well and truly become a thing of the past in a post-Covid world.
<<< Our recommended listen back
Episode 56, ‘What next for trade events?’ with Samuel Thangiah, Tara Dougal and Edward McNamara from Life Science Integrates, Informa Markets and BioXchange.
Leading leaders
Many of our guests describe their climb to leadership as accidental, with guests explaining that they never really set out to become a leader, it just sort of happened.
In nearly all cases, they cite modelling their own leadership style on the leaders they admired when they were in more junior positions. Many said they had blended styles, taking elements of good practice from a range of different people to create their own unique and effective style of leadership.
The leaders we interviewed were certainly humble and extremely reflective; they were open to feedback and keen to involve others, seeing leadership as process that prioritised working as a collective, involving people from right across the organisation to support decision making.
Guests shared that they were often not the smartest or most knowledgeable person in the room, but that it was not their job to be. Rather, they felt it their job to guide, support, encourage and to take advice from specialists within their organisation.
<<< Our recommended listen back
Episode 43, ‘The humble leader’ with Steve Ferguson from Medix Biochemica.
Episode 51, ‘The change optimist’ with Sébastien Ribault from Merck Life Science.
Oodles of optimism
The Molecule to Market podcasts are full of optimism; our guests are eternally positive about the opportunities and growth available across the outsourcing space. Each interview sheds light on the fast pace of change, the skilled workforces, funding and investment opportunities and the collaboration available to organisations of all sizes which would enable them to develop and become truly successful.
So many niche opportunities exist and there is space for everyone, from start-ups to multinational organisations, to operate globally. The pandemic put life sciences in the spotlight, giving the sector recognition on a global scale and making certain companies household names overnight.
With the public’s understanding and perceptions of pharma and biotech companies increasing, our guests believe that the talent pool will evolve and more people will look to careers in STEM, driven by the desire to make a positive difference. This can only be a good thing, helping the sector attract talent and to become more diverse and inclusive.
<<< Our recommended listen back
Episode 45, ‘The Stickability factor’, with Tom Moody from Almac Group.
Episode 29, ‘The CDMO disrupter’ with Tia Lyles-Williams from LucasPye Bio.
Top Takeaways
A Molecule to Market roundup would not be complete without a rundown of top takeaways! Summing up our learnings is a tricky task, given we have so much great content to review.
So, having listened back to hours of interviews these are our most valuable takeaways from 2021:
- Effective leadership is centred around listening. Successful leaders surround themselves with highly skilled and capable people, using their own strengths to guide, shape and encourage.
- Creating a resilient workforce able to adapt and change quickly is vital – the pandemic highlighted this by demonstrating the success of companies that were agile and able to react swiftly to market forces.
- Love what you do and keep the passion for your role, your company and your people alive. Remember why you’re in the game and take pleasure in the day-to-day, even when things might not be going your way!
- Fear to fail and do it anyway. Acknowledge and weigh up risks, take advice from the best minds in the room at the time – but don’t let fear hold you back and be prepared to learn lessons from failure so that you can inform future decisions.
- Role model the behaviors you wish to see in others and do all that you can to embrace equality, diversity and inclusion. Life sciences will only reflect the communities that the sector serves through proactive engagement, recruitment, development and progression opportunities for all.
And there you have it, our 2021 lookback. We hope you have enjoyed listening to each podcast and we look forward to bringing you more insights, inside information and interesting anecdotes in 2022. Stay tuned. >>>