President, Research & Development, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited
Ep71: Andy Plump
Takeda R&D president Andy Plump on fighting COVID19 and racism.
Transcript (22 segments)
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Luke Timberman0:01
Welcome to The Long Run. I'm your host, Luke Timberman. Today's guest is Andrew Plump, President of R&D at Takeda. Takeda is a 239-year-old Japanese pharma company with a new R&D hub in Cambridge. In this conversation, we discuss their COVID-19 response and the racial reckoning.
Andy Plump, welcome to the long run. Where are you working from these days?
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Andrew Plump3:45
Hi, Luke. I'm working from home in my attic. My calendar is dense with virtual meetings.
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Luke Timberman4:29
I use Teams too. You're a runner — we've run together at charity events. Are you still running?
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Andrew Plump4:45
I run every day: treadmill on weekdays, outdoors on weekends. How about you?
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Luke Timberman5:00
I keep my mileage up, mostly outside with distance.
So, you've transformed Takeda since 2015. Can you describe your assets and how they've been deployed in the pandemic?
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Andrew Plump6:12
Absolutely. Takeda is over two centuries old. Christophe Weber became the first foreign national to lead it, and I joined to transform it into an innovation-driven pharma. We now have 50,000 employees, two-thirds of R&D in Boston. Ninety percent of our pipeline is new since 2015. Our focus areas are oncology, GI, neuroscience, rare diseases, and vaccines. In the pandemic, we used our plasma expertise to develop a hyperimmune immunoglobulin therapy for COVID-19. We also had Rajeev Venayya, with pandemic-response experience, helping us shut down globally in the second week of March.
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Luke Timberman13:49
You announced convalescent plasma therapy on March 4th. What difference could it make?
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Andrew Plump14:23
We have one of the largest plasma businesses. We collect hyperimmune immunoglobulin from recovered patients, much like we did for H1N1. Early data is promising. We're in a partnership called the CoVIg Alliance with other plasma players to run a single study and supply globally. It won't reach millions of doses, but it can help hospitalized patients.
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Luke Timberman20:22
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How has industry collaboration looked from your perspective?
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Andrew Plump21:44
It's been astonishing. In mid-March, a group of R&D heads — from BMS, J&J, Novartis, and others — started the COVID R&D Alliance, which has tripled. We share best practices and fill gaps. Takeda is spending about $250 million on COVID-19 efforts this year. It's not about profit; it's about doing what only we can do. Our industry's reputation rivals the tobacco industry. If we don't leave this pandemic with a better reputation, we've failed.
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Luke Timberman28:10
It's about building trust. Science can achieve great things if we get our act together.
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Andrew Plump29:12
I believe we can manage or cure every disease this century, but we must improve our reputation. The racial disparities exposed by the pandemic are egregious. We need to act now.
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Luke Timberman31:09
What have the last ten days been like for you as a leader?
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Andrew Plump31:30
Bewildering. I've realized my own privilege as a white male. We have a long way to go on equity. Internally, we have a strong value system but need to do more. We need to listen, learn, and carry this forward.
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Luke Timberman34:53
Listening is first. You mentioned Ramona Sakara's blog post. What concrete steps can you take?
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Andrew Plump35:38
Ramona is our US business head. We sent a company note and held a convocation with our Black leadership council. We must create a culture of inclusion and diversity. In clinical trials, we need better representation of underrepresented minorities. In hiring, we need to look beyond the usual pools. Diverse teams perform better.
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Luke Timberman40:00
I'll keep on this long after the news cycle passes. Thank you for joining me.
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Andrew Plump41:32
Thank you for having me, Luke.
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Luke Timberman41:40
Thanks for listening. This is a production of Timberman Report. Sound editor Pedro Rosado, music by DA Wallik. See you next episode.