Novartis looks to growth
Novartis AG , the giant Swiss drug maker, made waves in the pharmaceutical industry three years ago when it relocated its global research headquarters to Cambridge's old Necco building -- immediately becoming one of the area's largest biotech employers and an icon of Cambridge's transformation from an industrial city to a research capital. Novartis chief executive Daniel Vasella spoke with Globe reporter Stephen Heuser on a recent visit to Boston.
Q: When you moved your research headquarters, you put it thousands of miles away from your Swiss head office, in a former candy factory, run by a person who'd never worked in the drug business [Mark Fishman , a Massachusetts General Hospital cardiologist]. What were you thinking?
A: I'm an optimist. [Laughs.] First we did an analysis about where we wanted to expand, and we came to the conclusion that the single most important factor was access to talent. Secondly, I really wanted to have somebody who would bring in the new know-how in biology and genetics, and the best way to bring somebody in was to take someone from academia. I think we found someone like that. It was a rational decision.
Q: How's it working out?
A: After this relatively short period of time, very well -- judging by the quality of the researchers we have, the climate that has been established, and the new programs that have been started. What I cannot say yet is the number of new drugs that will come out of it. It takes 10 to 15 years from when you have a drug to get it to the [market]. We have candidates, but they are not yet really ripe.
Q: What are your plans for the Cambridge site? How do you see this evolving?
A: We have a little over 1,200 scientists and lab workers and administrative people -- this is a relatively important operation and it's the headquarters for research worldwide. Are we going to continue to expand? Yes we will, but not at the pace we're growing now. There will be some selective expansion.
Q: Which areas?
A: Certainly biologics is an important playing field where we want to be come stronger. We have also made some alliances, for RNAi and monoclonal antibodies.
Q: How do the powerful scientists in Switzerland like taking their orders from Cambridge?
A: It was a real challenge in the beginning, when people had a feeling that suddenly they weren't the center of the world anymore. And to find out that change isn't for the worse, but sometimes can be for the better -- that took a little bit of time. But it's a non issue today.
Q: As an international drug company, you run drug trials that affect people's lives all over the world. How do you minimize abuse of the system?
A: When you have a hundred thousand employees, you don't know everybody. There are people who would not steal even if a purse falls in front of them and they see the $100 bill sticking out of it. And you have other people, who if they saw there was probably a purse in your pocket, they would come by and try to steal it.
But in between, you have normal people. And normal people react to their social environment and to the culture you set up, and that means you have to set rules that are clear -- where people know what behavior is expected, what the boundaries are.
Q: Have you seen ``The Constant Gardener," where a drug company assassinates people who look too closely into its clinical trials?
A: I don't know if you read the book, but the company is a Basel company, and I was quite upset. There are two large companies [Novartis and Roche], and I don't think either one would ever practice something like that. So I asked to contact the author and I invited him to come and discuss his concerns, and to look and we would show him whatever he would like to see -- and he refused to even talk to us. When I saw the movie afterward, I wasn't really persuaded. It was too unrealistic for me.
