The Future of Healthcare: Live With Intent
For the past two decades, Thomas Reichart and Justin Tomlinson, authors of Live With Intent, have been consulting leaders in the global healthcare industry. The hosts continue to inspire and advise thought leaders and experts to think beyond their roles, functions, and companies to actively shape the future of patient-driven medicine. Subscribe and become part of creating the future of healthcare.
The Future of Healthcare: Live With Intent
The Practical Strategist with Onaiza Jilani Cadoret-Manier (Pakistan/USA)
Join us, Justin Tomlinson and Thomas Reichart, as we sit down with Onaiza Jilani Cadoret-Manier, Chief Executive Officer and President of a biotech startup currently in ‘stealth-mode'. We discuss the power of prioritizing and blending strategy with operations, Onaiza's leadership principles drawn from her youth, and the future of healthcare driven by AI and bioengineering innovations.
Onaiza is a seasoned operator, board member, and advisor with a proven track record of building and leading successful teams in the Bio/Pharma/Life Sciences industry. With nearly 30 years of experience, she has driven growth for both Fortune 500 companies and startups, including Pfizer, Genentech, Amylin, GRAIL, and Ionis. Her expertise spans corporate strategy, business development, commercialization, and operations. She is recognized for her leadership, negotiation skills, and ability to catapult new product growth. Onaiza also brings platform and multi-modality expertise, with deep knowledge across diverse disease areas such as immunology, pulmonology, neurology, and rare diseases.
Hello Neza, welcome, it's my honor. I've been looking forward to introducing you to Thomas. Thomas has been my business partner, my friend, my guide to all things Europe over the last 25 years, and I've known you for years now, but you've never met Thomas. So meet Thomas.
Speaker 2:Wonderful to meet you, Thomas. I've heard many things about you over the years. It's great to finally meet the other side of the partnership.
Speaker 3:Vanessa, thanks very much. It's the same for me. I've heard so much about you. Every time Justin had a workshop or a session or a process with you, I always heard that there's exciting things happening. So you know, justin's told me that you've spent the majority of your career, like, in various commercial roles uh, you know, among the amongst the big uh healthcare companies like pfizer, genentech and roche, I understand, at ionis. Recently, at ionis pharmaceuticals, you built up the global product strategy and commercial operations, the whole division from scratch and currently you're like launching two first products in parallel. No small task. So congratulations. And if I'm not mistaken, I'm hearing that you are the CEO of a new startup, not disclosed yet.
Speaker 2:That is right. We are in stealth, as we say.
Speaker 3:In stealth. Yeah, we were looking like where's this stealth company? Right, I know?
Speaker 2:people get that confused. Is it terminology or actual name of the company? So we have a name and if we told you the name and you went on to search for it in Google, you wouldn't find a thing. So let's just call it stealth for today.
Speaker 3:Hey, great. So I love stealth planes. So wonderful. And to make it complete, I understand you're a board member on various biotech companies, so did I catch that halfway correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, I think that was very accurate. Actually, the team and I spent a little over four years with Ionis building out the strategy to do commercialization, because it's been mostly a direct discovery company. And you know I wore the business development hat where we were partnering much of our discovery. And after a while the team in research actually, and in development said we'd like to see some of these discoveries we're doing on the science side make it all the way to the patients and hence started the journey of how do you become a FIPCO, as you call it, a fully integrated biotech company.
Speaker 2:And Justin's right, we built that team from ground up and he helped us get that situated in place and they're doing phenomenally well and they're looking for, you know, two launches in the upcoming 18 months. So, fingers crossed, they're going gonna do really well. I just went on to do another startup which is completely at the CEO level, very, very different the commercialization side. It's early research and one of the things you'll learn about me as we go through this I just I'm a very curious learner and like to learn new things, so this is definitely out of my deep zone of expertise, but very exciting and very humbling, I would say.
Speaker 3:Well, anesa, thanks very much that we can listen to you think today about the future of healthcare. I'm sure not just we but our listeners are and will be excited to hear about. What will the future bring? How will healthcare function? But over to you, justin, I think we'll go deeper into history before we go into the future, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we're really excited to draw out what you've learned, having worked for the big companies, the mid-sized companies, now the small companies, and you know where you see healthcare going. Maybe, before we get into those details, we can just help our audience get to know you a little bit better and know the person behind the business executive. So how about if we start with where you grew up and what shaped you early in life? How about if we start with where you grew?
Speaker 2:up and what shaped you early in life? Sure, so I was born in Pakistan, in Karachi, a very busy metropolitan city with, you know, hundreds of millions of people walking around the street every day. So I think, at my core I am an extremely city person who loves noise and, you know, loves the action, loves the pace. But I am settled down in a very rural area. So I guess as you age, some of the other things that you are in your core move on, I suppose. But I always get this bit of wonderful energy when I go back to big cities and hence we always like vacation in cities as a result. So Karachi was very different than the United States of America. I couldn't even compare it to any one city that I've been to over my last 30 years. But we moved at the age of seven, turning eight, and I was, I finished up third grade. So it's a you know, you have good, good memories and you've already established yourself in a place, although you're just entering, kind of this young adulthood. It was a beautiful place for me.
Speaker 2:I grew up with my grandmother, mostly as my mother had moved over to New York City when I was five due to my father passed away when I was a year old, so she really had to be the breadwinner of the company. So I was raised by two fantastic women one who was the working model which I think I get a lot of my inspiration from, probably a lot of my ethos in terms of work ethos from, and then my grandmother, who is just a wonderful big believer in faith and was the one who grounded the entire family, I think during a pretty difficult time with really no you know, in a country where you are looking at, just you know, leading by males and women had a more backseat role. To be able to do that for her with six kids and my mother with one kid and widowed at a very early age, I think, probably set some very foundational principles in me and I grew up with some very strong shoulders, I would say, you know, a lot of independence For me. It was very natural for women, even in that society, to drive things, make decisions, lead and lead with, with some, some nurture and empathy, and I think I got a lot of those things from my grandmother and my mother early on.
Speaker 1:I remember you telling me a story about your grandmother, I think, with renters, or something that you shared how much faith she had in people and how much grace and how amazing she was with people.
Speaker 2:Now it's a really good reminder. It's a great story. Yeah, I kind of go back. You know you're like five or six and what are the things that come at flashback from your long-term memory and you have to keep in mind again.
Speaker 2:You know she was also widowed at like in her mid-40s, had six kids still to raise and her only income was the rent that she got from, like, the apartments that were behind her main apartment and most of the people who were renting it were pretty poor. They were living really month to month main apartment and most of the people who are renting it were pretty, pretty poor. They were living really month to month and oftentimes, you know I was well aware that she had to, like you know, pay these bills because I could just hear it right the electricity or, you know, or the grocery bill, really basics in life, and these people would come in once a month at the time paying rent and it would always be a different person or two. And these people would come in once a month at the time paying rent and it would always be a different person or two and they'd come together and we'd sit down kind of in this. You know she had this swing, that swing like back and forth inside the house like it was a very normal part of the feature, and they would come, come, come, sit on the floor. She'd invite them up to the swing which is actually a real big honor and say, come up, you know, let's sit together and talk about this.
Speaker 2:And she was just so endearing and empathetic about you know the hard times that they were going through.
Speaker 2:But they always committed to get it to her the next month and she would say, okay, no problem, you know, I'll wait for the next month. Sometimes the next month became two months, um, but she had so much faith and so much faith in the in, in their, in their ethics, that she knew that this was just a matter of time and she bore the brunt of the time. That means she was really short in terms of paying her bills, uh, but that's how she treated it as a community and that's one of the greatest things I remember about her and gives me a lot of faith. When you know I've been in challenging times. As we all get to and think about how confident and how unmoved she was during those periods of stress, I would say and you move through stress very easily when you think about that, because not having enough money to pay the grocery bill or the electricity bill is not some of the things we face necessarily in our day, the stress that we get. You can easily walk through that when you remind yourself of that period.
Speaker 1:Well, I certainly see that empathy radiates through you as well, so you've carried that forward, thank you. What's it? What was it like for you to reunite with your mother and enter the United States at age seven or eight?
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, just amazingly excited to explore this new world. Daunting because it was just so different than where I grew up, but comforting because it was just New York City, full of crowds and people and everybody running around on the streets and the cars honking, and so there is this familiarity that came with it. That was somewhat comforting, believe it or not, but there was an enormous amount of adaptation that needed to be done in that first year. So I call myself a bit of a chameleon and I think I've lived in very many different countries and worked in, as you said, different environments big, small, medium and I attribute that those kind of early chameleon skills to be able to do that and assimilate really well, understand different cultures, be attuned to it, you know, and figure out how to kind of work within that and elevate it as well.
Speaker 3:When we look into female leadership and being productive in life, it looks like your mother and grandmother have been great role models and have taught you some foundational principles. Would it be possible to share, like one or two principles with us on leadership that have been so ingrained from early on in you?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. They have been great role models. I'd go back to my grandmother being one of faith, just believing that things will work out, and they usually did, and that happens a lot. There's a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity in our business and we like to control everything and we want to know what the outcome is going to be. But hanging in uncertainty is most often our world and I think that I really got that from my grandmother.
Speaker 2:You know she lived with a tremendous amount of uncertainty on both sides of the things and, yeah, I can work my way through that. I think, really well, I get to the okay. If the outcome was this versus that, would my life be that different? You know? Would the people who I'm working with be that different that? Would my life be that different? You know? Would the people who I'm working with be that different? And I can't really manage that, but I can actually visualize a couple of different outcomes that get very comfortable with it and, as a result, I think that period of uncertainty until you know the outcome is just a period. You go through it like a normal day.
Speaker 2:For my mother, I think it's just tremendous resilience, you know, I think, as a widow with a young kid coming into the land of opportunity because she just wanted a better education for her daughter takes a tremendous amount of courage. So I would say courage would be one. But then she went through some really hard times and there's a lot of resilience. She had to get some multiple jobs to pay the bills. She's very hardworking and, yeah, she got it done, always with a smile.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:And Onesa this curiosity that's in deep in you how did that lead you to science and to the healthcare industry? How did you get into healthcare?
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, I think I think well, I would say fortuitous, but maybe not. I mean, I was a pre-med major because you know, that was my mother's desire and she was somewhat had really made sure that you know her she was. She wanted to go to med school and she had to pull out of college early, right to go work due to my grandfather passing away, out of college early, right to go work due to my grandfather passing away. So I think it was just a desire and she really wanted her daughter to do it. So I did start off in that realm, very interested in science early on. As a result of that, I just found that it wasn't really, you know, exactly my forte when I was in school, but being able to recognize that that is not where my full strengths are. But there's a lot of curiosity there. It's not really where I'm going to excel doing things day to day. I think it's also important to know kind of when to when to move and change. So I think I just got it in those early days from there and then I think I just got lucky in having my business degree being applied to science. I don't think I actively, honestly sought it out, although that would be a brilliant strategy, but I didn't, just to be honest. And then.
Speaker 2:But when I fell into it, I just like, oh, I just fell in love. There's just so much there about just purpose and it is really meaningful in terms of what you do. If you could see how business can actually improve lives in any way, small ways or big ways, you know, it's certainly better than some of the other things. I was looking at the time, which is like a cosmetics company and, you know, doing business development or strategic planning for them, and I worked for an automobile company in Germany in Volkswagen, and yeah, that didn't, it didn't cut it for them. I worked for an automobile company in Germany in Volkswagen, and yeah, that didn't, it didn't cut it for me. I was like I love this stuff, but I just don't want to do it for automobiles. So I think I knew what I didn't like, but I wasn't actively searching what I did like. So, in that way, eliminating options that didn't fulfill a purpose was probably the way I landed into the one that was meaningful purpose, which was life sciences.
Speaker 3:And as you went through these managerial and leadership experiences, were you more operative or more strategic? What has been your focus?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question. So I love strategy. I probably say that is where my innate you know energy goes towards and I enjoy it. I get a lot of joy figuring out a problem or a puzzle that I look at in a different way, that you know maybe somebody else looked at and wasn't able to kind of decode it Super joyous.
Speaker 2:So I started off there and that's all I wanted to do until one day a really good mentor of mine said well, it's like strategy without you know, any type of operationalization of it is meaningless because you just have no idea, theoretically, if it worked or not. And if you're going to go back and do strategy without knowing if it worked or not, you're not going to become a better strategist. So, you know, I think you need to kind of cross the line and do some operations and I begrudgingly, you know, took my next job in operations and I thought I would just, I just really didn't think I would like it at all and I was like I felt like I was like I have to do this because I really respected this mentor of mine and, yeah, once I did, I was like, oh, this is actually great as well. I think it helped me pull on things that I didn't believe were my strengths, like the details or process, and it forced me to get better at those things. It also forced me to be a better leader, to know what I didn't know as well and hire people around me that were excelling at that. So it was a really good compliment.
Speaker 2:But that didn't mean I just didn't do it. I had to pick up my hands and actually do it myself. So I've actually gone vacillated between the two, pretty intentionally between strategy and operations and I do think that is a really you know makes for some really great leadership experience, practical implementation, learnings. So when you go back and do strategy, you're just that much more effective at it. So I really encourage everybody to think about this. You know, strategy to operations, operations back to strategy, and really thinking about that kind of movement throughout your career.
Speaker 3:The strategy kind of degenerates into work. At some point right it becomes very operational.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 3:But what's your secret? I mean, with the multiple engagements you have in boards and in startups and in the structural you know high impact work that you have been doing, that you are doing, what's your secret in actually making that bridge are doing? What's your secret in actually making that bridge to ensuring execution of your strategy? What would be one thing young people should remember and actually do, as they are in large ecosystems, right, and they're being faced with all these strategies and they wonder how on earth this is ever going to come together I.
Speaker 2:I think it's really simple, really, really simple. I think oftentimes strategy is written and it sits on a shelf and I think I would encourage everybody to not let it live on a shelf. You know I've always said have that one pager with you Know, before you're going into a meeting which is going to be mostly about operations and how the you know how the plan is coming along. The plan may be going, you know, according to the timeline that you propose. It may be, you know, veering away from it, but then ask yourself why, why am I doing what I'm doing? At very frequent stages of implementing that strategic plan and there are learnings along the way that why may not actually be that resonant anymore and you have the right and the obligation to go back and change up your strategy. If you have a very good strategy, most of the time you will just be fine tuning your implementation. Sometimes you'll say I think I've actually answered the question right.
Speaker 2:I had one of those actually, on Friday we got the results of an experiment and they weren't perfect, as experiments usually are, and there was this inertia in the group to go back and do more.
Speaker 2:And well, let's, you know, send it out to an expert and see if they can validate the results, or let's run one more experiment. And then I had to really go back and say, well, what was the objective? Why were we doing this? And you know, we said it was for X reason. And then we went around the table. I was like, well, did these results actually make you believe that X reason is true? You know, and we I went around the table with seven, seven people, be it the research associate, to the senior biologist or to the chief operating officer, and I think we all agreed, like it's like okay, I believe that, based on the data I've seen, if you gave me more data I don't think I'd refute it. I think that it could be better. You know, maybe you'll reach a better p-value in stat sig, but at the end of the day, I know this thing works and that was it.
Speaker 2:We were doing this to see if it actually is X and I can't tell you what X is because we're in stealth but and I think it was great because it accomplished our objective, our strategy, our strategic objective that we had written. Otherwise, we were going down the path for about a half hour to do, like you know, 10 more things around it and would have had to wait another three months. So I just encourage everybody to ask that question. Have the strategy in mind. Do not leave it behind in some PowerPoint presentation somewhere. Make it active in your day-to-day as you're operationalizing things.
Speaker 1:Great answer, and, thomas, if I were to answer that question on your behalf. Oneza, one of the things that I see people in awe about as they work with you is your ability to digest data. I think you do more homework than I see. I mean, it seems like you probably go the extra mile on homework, and the way you show up is this unique ability to consume data and then speak about it in very simple, concrete, practical, tangible ways, and more than once I've seen the reaction of people when they hear you present out on something like X data or whatever it is. But I was really shocked at a conversation Well, not shocked, I was surprised in a conversation you were recently having with me and one of your team members where you talked about communication not always being your strength. I haven't known you during that period and I've been meaning to ask you what was that about?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't think, you know, there was a period of time actually when I was pretty senior in my roles.
Speaker 2:I think it comes back to I do like data, right, and I do consume a lot and there is a lot of connectivity that goes on in my head right, and then it becomes really obvious and then I communicate in a very, you know, unthoughtful way on the obvious that people don't get it. So I think it was really all related to that more than anything else. I think the second part, so that was just, I would say, part, part one. But then there was the second part when I was in a very big leadership job. So I think I worked through that in phase one. I would say the second part was really finding a place at the table to voice your opinion, and I would just say that was very vocal people at Genentech. They're very bright and you know if you came around the table just so eloquent, right and just rapid manner, able to kind of state your opinion or your rationale, your counterpoint, whatever it is, and I think that there were times where it was just hard for me to figure out how to step into this very kind of boisterous around the table kind of boisterous around the table. We called it, you know, interrogate the science but not the people.
Speaker 2:And I think during that period I went through a very formidable change of figuring out how to get that done. So I had to figure out some really quick steps to get this conceptual thing that goes on in my head, details forming into strategy, and communicate really rapidly. Rapidly, because if you didn't, the time was gone. And I do remember my boss at the time helped me quite a bit Because he's like I don't know when I talked to you one on one, all those things are there, but in the group it just doesn't come out. And you know he just made some room.
Speaker 2:I thought make some room, make some room for me, ask me. You know he just made some room. I thought make some room, make some room for me, ask me. You know there are 10 people around the table. You know that I have some thoughts. You believe in that. So give me some room. And I think that room gave me time to practice. And then I just I think you know practice gets you better at it and hence what you were saying, how I show up, I can consume data, but I can connect the dots and communicate pretty rapidly the high levels. But I think that's just all due to good feedback from a manager and also really great room to practice it when they know they believe that you have it. You just need some time to get there.
Speaker 1:Well, congrats on developing that, because it's clearly become part of your brand and what you're known for and your ability to do that, whether it's in investor meetings or in the corporate setting or whatever it may be. You and I were talking a little bit beforehand how unusual and interesting it is to have someone who has been at the big companies, the mid-sized companies and now the startup companies, and one of our curiosities before the call was I wonder how you, Oneza, would describe the differences and what you've learned in going between those three different types of companies.
Speaker 2:Yes, very different. So when I went from Pfizer to Amlin, I think I had probably the biggest adaptation because it's such a big company and we did things just so meticulously well. So there was a bit of letting go of perfection. In a midsize company One, you didn't have the resources. Two, you didn't have the time. Mid-sized company one you didn't have the resources. Two, you didn't have the time. Three, maybe you didn't have all the people that have been skilled in these deep ways in certain, I would say, very specific functions, right. So large companies like really have you, like develop deep expertise in a small area and you go deep and you know, and then they everybody brings something to the table and what you form is, like you know, kind of brilliant at the end of the day. I think it's a great experience for anybody to start off in, because if you haven't had that, you just don't know what that process can look like. However, when you go to a medium or a small site company, you just don't have the depth you know in resources and in people to be able to do that. And the learning is where do you let go of? That's just too much perfection, and I can make a decision based on 80-20?. That's the number one learning actually when you're going there. And the two is being able to spot what really is important that you don't have inside your organization and going out to seek it. So it's not everything, but knowing what is really critical and bringing that back in and then integrating that into your organization. I think that's step number one letting go of some perfection. What's the 80-20 rule? And then really knowing what you need to know and if you don't have it, go elsewhere to go get it, but make sure that there's a learning process that comes back and is integrated into your organization as well.
Speaker 2:I think going from medium to small is different. In that first piece, you still need to retain what I just described. However, you have to just be able to do a lot of different things. So if it's a big strategy, of course CEO should be doing that. You have to set up your own meetings. You got to set up your own POs. You got to learn different tech systems.
Speaker 2:Just the sheer enormity of what you do in a day, from like I would call the high to low of what you think you should be doing, varies and vacillates so much, and everybody contributes. You know everybody contributes and everyone sits at the table, be it the research associate and the CEO, coo like everybody's opinion actually really matters and we all contribute. It's yours. So there's a different level of sense of ownership and I think drive that comes from it it's very different as well, but the basic principles are the same.
Speaker 2:Right, that whole knowing what is too much, what's just good enough, all the things I talked about in the strategy piece, knowing what your strategy is, why you're doing it, how we accomplish the objective we set out to do. Should we move on? We do a retrospective on virtually every meeting in terms of what did we learn last week? You know what went well, where did the timeline slip right. But having that discipline to do a retrospective on a regular cadence is how the learning comes. I just don't think you do that as well in even the medium-sized company, because just the sheer number of people and the time, so the smallness brings just a different level of attention to detail.
Speaker 1:And it feels to me like you're really enjoying the small.
Speaker 2:And it feels to me like you're really enjoying this mall. I am, yeah, it's really Well. First of all, I yeah, I am. I'm learning new things. I'm learning the early piece of early research and I think we're all learning it together because we're all in a new field. So you know, I have a lot of people out of academia that haven't really made a drug before, and then when you think about me, as you know the person I get a drug that's already pretty much done in commercialization.
Speaker 2:So we're all finding our ways and learning that area and it's been. It's enriching. You know, as the team will say, it's like wow, in like one week or days that we've done so much. Next week's going to be like we're going to learn so much more. So the learning's great and we're all doing it together. That's just super fun. And I think this learning how to use technology better has been really just personally helpful for me, because it's never been my strong suit. So, you know, it's a younger organization too. So just like the tools that they use and the pace that they go out, it's like it keeps you young in spirit.
Speaker 3:We'd be interesting to learn what's the identity of a NASA. You know as you, as you shape your organization and as you shape those that trust you with their organizations. Who are you? Someone that understands data well, perceives data well, interprets it well. You have the different backgrounds in the industry, but at your core.
Speaker 2:Could you describe yourself in one word? That's a tough question. I mean, is it like the one strength that you think that you really have, that's somewhat innate in you, or is it an identity question?
Speaker 3:Well, I was really. I was really amazed at one of the BlackRock managers when he was asked on stage you know who are you, in one word, and when it didn't take him one second and he said I'm a lawyer, right, and it's his identity, and he's now heavy into politics in Germany and into business and stuff. But he had this unique connection to this role, right. And then I've got a friend who was a pilot so I asked him hey, who are you? In one word, he's like I'm an aviator, right. So some people have this amazing understanding of their identity. I think justin and I we have this ongoing dialogue. What are we?
Speaker 3:coaches, leadership consultants change manager it's like you go through all these things right and and uh, it's hard enough if you are unclear yourself, but it's even worse when you actually do this to others. So we were wondering like, at the core, you know who are you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I know and I still got this, like in this recent role when I was talking to one of the future investors, cause we were pivoting the company and yeah, it's like it's it's very clear, it's like you're a strategist, like innately in you innate innate.
Speaker 2:You're a strat, I'm a strategist and and I've gotten that in all of the different jobs I've been in right Be a big, small commercial, now early research, then there was business development and for me, if that part is missing, I cannot actually move to any type of execution. I just stall. So I have to always go back to make sure that's really strong and it's there. Sometimes people just do right, a lot of people do and I cannot do until I know the why and what are we trying to get to right that I just, I just stalled. It's like it's really paralyzing for me without strategy. So I can be great at operationalizing things, but if I don't know, I don't know the strategy, I cannot do it. It's an interesting thing, yeah, then I go back and we bring it. It's like right now it's like, well, how are we going to make a drug for patients? The first three months, it's like okay, or six months actually. And we changed the company. We're like we're not going to make a drug here. So yeah, I think that's it.
Speaker 3:Wonderful.
Speaker 2:Totally resonates with me that was actually a really great question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I can validate that, thomas, as you said, that it's like yep, that's spot on, that's it, that's what people really appreciate about you and that's what they seek you out for. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Does that mean that a part of you lives in the future?
Speaker 2:Very practical. Yes, I like to think about the future, but I also get, I think, one of the things that doesn't. I'm a practical strategist, you know I'm the. I cannot have vision without strategy and I think a lot of people who are very futuristic are visionaries. Right, this is what the world should look like in 10 years. But how you get there is kind of where you know, probably where I excel.
Speaker 3:I mean I gotta say, justin, I love learning that being a strategist can mean you actually do both. You're strong operatively and you're strong strategically right, we had this discussion yesterday, remember, right, that the operational aspect really levels up the strategy, would you? Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2:amazes, yeah no, I remember that. So jennifer cook said this to you once and I still remember she's like people now feel I came in on it was eight-year-old product. She's like I was like about you know, nine months to in to the job and new to genetic. And you know she said she's like people really feel like they have a vision that's practical. It's like they can see that they can get this done. It's not just words in a paper and that's what good strategy looks like. It has to be. You got to make people believe that it's executable, otherwise no one's going to do it right. So it's the yeah, it has to be. It has to be, otherwise it's just again words on a paper. It has to be.
Speaker 1:It has to be, otherwise it's just again words on a paper, no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Well, I know AI is the biggest buzzword right now and it's such a big area, so maybe I will break it down a little bit. I think that, as I'm in the direct discovery process now, as I'm in the direct discovery process now, you know there's a lot of trial and error involved. Like we try to find these things by doing these experiments and then you wait and if it works you go back. If it doesn't work, you go back and you kind of redo it. And I think AI is really trying to speed that iterative process in quite a way.
Speaker 2:I think the challenge is that most people who are trying to do it are approaching it as an engineering problem in drug discovery how to make drug discovery more efficient. I think there's a lot of room there because the data sets have improved right. I think there's a lot of room there because the data sets have improved right. But biology is not data. Biology is tricky and it can fool you and it operates in different ways and you have to still go through the experiments to see if it's going to work out or not. And I don't think we found this kind of biological person using engineering tools or an engineering person using biological training and insights in one person and then we put the two people in a room, try to figure it out and we haven't been able to assimilate it. And I think that once that happens, that you approach it not from an engineering problem first but a biological problem first and the biology person thinks values the engineering piece to get it to a more faster process, that they can actually help me, you know, versus saying it's a biology problem, you won't really know until you try it, because it's the human body, right. So there has to be openness on that side. Or we just train new people to be bioengineers, which is where I think a lot of the young people are spending their time right Like bioengineering is a really great major, like you know, in undergrad. So I think once they get through that, where you're both the biologist and the engineer in one human being, then I think we the biologist and the engineer in one human being, then I think we're going to approach the problem in a very different way. Right now we're going to try and take two disciplines, put it together and mash it into one and hope for a different outcome. And you know, coaches like you are spending lots of time to get one to listen to the other.
Speaker 2:But I think the true change and the acceleration will come when this next generation gets in, these bioengineers, into solving how to take the enormous amounts of RNA and DNA and analytical data sets that we have, combining it together and really solving not a data problem but a biology problem that we have and knowing that it's still going to be risky and there'll still be a couple of turns on that. So I think that's one of the biggest areas that is up for improvement, because having 10 years to make a drug is still a very long time and I think it's just too far from what you discover in an academic environment to actually get a therapeutic to a patient. So we must all challenge ourselves to say every single person on that value chain has to challenge themselves to say how do we get this drug faster to a patient? We can all improve upon the process, but we haven't looked at it as a value chain whole Because of the way we're organized. They're all in very different departments and in organizations and hence I'm really loving the small, because you can see it from beginning to end and maybe we can make some differences there.
Speaker 2:So I think that's one and I think that there's a lot going on in consumerism with patients as well and how they search for data and knowledge. I see the Gen Zs to the millennials, you know. Every time there's like a symptom or they got advice from a physician which you know, I would just say, okay, my doctor told me this, you know. And they are researching everything that's available. There's the chat, gpt, research to the Google search and putting in their own perspective of what they need to do and where they need to go in next, not blindly following a prescription order from a physician or a diagnostic procedure, and I think that's increasing in volumes and that's also a big shift that's going on in healthcare where there will be just more just, informed, informed, informed patients, consumers, people who will make choices that are their choices, not necessarily a physician intermediate choice for manufacture to that.
Speaker 2:And then there's a you know, aging population that's going on that also wants to age really well and healthy.
Speaker 2:So this whole longevity, healthy aging piece is a really another big force of nature that's going on Right and it is, you know it's. I think people don't just want to live longer, they want to live a better life and a high quality life. So they're taking more preventative measures than I've ever seen before in my 30 years in, because at the end of the day, we've been on the commercial side. You're always trying to get people to be preventive, right. I mean, taking a cholesterol med was trying to be preventative to a heart attack, but people just didn't comply. But now people are taking it at these young ages like a kiddo in their 20s or 30s. They don't even have high cholesterol because they want to live longer and live better. So I think the healthcare system has been one of acute care and I see some good trends from people, not from our health care system. That's saying we want to have a preventative care system as well. So those would be the three areas that I see shifting pretty radically, I think, in the next 10 years no-transcript.
Speaker 3:I want to access exactly that. I'd like to have access to the strategies within you, onesa. What is one operative to-do or advice you have as you challenge us and ourselves to be faster than 10 years in drug development? You know, along that value chain, what would you like people to do? I mean, peter Drucker and Stephen Covey taught focus as the secret of effectiveness, but how? In the way? If you manage ecosystems and if you're in overwhelm and have so many options, how do you get to focus? Is there an operative secret you have?
Speaker 2:I think it will be about embracing new ways and listening to other disciplines that you didn't actually grow up in. So if the young generations coming in has new disciplines, I think the people who are at the helm right now need to be bigger listeners than they have been and I think small trials and small experiments in these new ways like literally quick turns, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick experiments to iterate, to learn what's, what can work, uh, will be really important, because we haven't figured out the you know the long game yet, but we do know what are short ways to to experiment, to kind of get to the results so we can iterate faster. I'd say those would be the two things, thank you.
Speaker 2:Is there anything that we should have asked you that we haven't asked you. Oneza, you asked me a lot more than I thought you would, so I appreciate the depth within which you went into. It made me think deeper about the future and myself, and it's actually quite fun in myself and it's actually quite fun Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're welcome and thank you for for the tenacity and for the empathy and for the way you go about stretching people around you. I think you know for me to get to the next level, we're all going to have to stretch. Thomas and I are trying to stretch ourselves. You really have a knack at pushing people, stretching them in a way that they feel good about. Thank you for everything that you do.
Speaker 2:Thank you. It's been a pleasure working with you, justin, over the years. You brought great things to me and my teams in terms of their effectiveness and their courage to get things done. And, tom, it's so nice to meet you. Finally, the partner, the silent partner I've heard about for many years, who's certainly not that silent.
Speaker 3:Thanks very much. It's been great to have you on our podcast today.
Speaker 2:Likewise, have a great day and a great week. Thanks you too, today.
Speaker 1:Likewise, have a great day and a great week. Same to you, you too. So, thomas, what are your reflections on that?
Speaker 3:What a delight to speak with Onesa. Our dialogue had such a great flow right. It was almost like we could watch her mold her thoughts and, as she was listening and dialoguing with us, I really enjoyed that. This became almost a co-creation in dialogue and I liked really learning about her at a deeper level very authentic, very open and a very nice flow.
Speaker 1:I love how she's connected to her roots. She really understands how, what her grandmother, what her mother offered her. She doesn't take it for granted, she's appreciative of it and she's amplifying it. She's taking all that goodness that they sacrificed and gave to her. She's taking all that goodness that they sacrificed and gave to her through teaching principles and schooling and so forth, and she's doing something amazing with it and amplifying them every step of the way.
Speaker 3:I'm sure they're very proud of her. Onesa is a real example that public victory is built on private victory. Right, it's so much came through in the dialogue that it was these private, personal victory principles, from her grandmother to her mother, to herself and through her family, that made her strong in order to work in such an ecosystem where she contributes today. And, yeah, we're not looking for shortcuts, we're not looking for easy answers, right, but it's wonderful when in a life and in her reflecting on her life and her productivity, it comes down to a few principles that make a difference. I like the idea of listening to the new people that are now going to challenge us, listening to the younger generation that has different thoughts, and that there are different disciplines that are now going to enter the boardroom and that the people at the helm need to listen to those. That's what we're seeing with digital athletes. That's what we're seeing with a number of clients. That's the we're seeing with digital athletes.
Speaker 1:That's what we're seeing with a number of clients. That's the issue, yep. Well, it'll be fun and exciting to watch what Stealth Mode does and what comes forth from her efforts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and who Stealth Mode is?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:To all of our listeners. Thank you for listening To all of our listeners. Thank you for listening. Our desire is to explore and contribute to the future of healthcare by applying the principles of Live With Intent. For more information on the Future of Healthcare, live With Intent podcast, go to wwwlivewithintenteu. This podcast is produced by Madeline.
Speaker 1:May.