This episode features an interview with Loïc Giraud, Head of Digital Delivery at Novartis. He has spent the last 9 years revolutionizing how Novartis deals with data. In this episode, Loic talks about technology transformations, the importance of listening, COVID’s impact on the healthcare system, and much more.
This episode features an interview with Loïc Giraud, Head of Digital Delivery at Novartis. He has spent the last 9 years revolutionizing how Novartis deals with data.
In this episode, Loïc talks about technology transformations, the importance of listening, COVID’s impact on the healthcare system, and much more.
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Steve Hamm: [00:00:00] So low. It's great to talk to you this morning.
Loic Giraud: Thank you, Steve. My pleasure.
Steve Hamm: Now Novartis is one of the giants of the global pharmaceuticals industry. If you'd please describe key dimensions of the business. I think that'd be helpful to our listeners.
Loic Giraud: So, if you look at Novartis , um, the mission of Novartis is to reimagine medicine and to extend people's life. So in 2020, we have treated a hundred, 1 billion patients. And our organization is focused on free defined industry sector that we call it innovative medicine, oncology, and genomics. We also provide novel treatments, including hydro and gene therapy. Right.
Steve Hamm: Yeah, if you just drill down a little bit on what's the innovative medicine, what would, what categories is that?
Loic Giraud: Yeah. So [00:01:00] innovative medicines is , um, toxic systems and, and prescriptive trucks that , uh, we can give to patients to address , um, obvious such as cardiovascular disease , um, you know, um, eye diseases. And so Yazzie's heart failure and many of the Harvey has , um, In the , um, in the 70,000 types meant that they have not a cure for today.
Steve Hamm: Yeah. Yeah. There's still a lot of work to be done. Isn't there. All right. Well, that's a good explanation. And you said generics that's. Is that a big part of your business or is that a lesser, the important part?
Loic Giraud: I think it's a genetic studies. Um, it's probably a 15% of our business today. And , uh, obviously the largest part of our business is our innovative medicine , um, sector.
Steve Hamm: Yeah. And , uh, as I understand that you don't do vaccines.
Loic Giraud: We actually sold off our vaccines. You need , um, for GSK, I think it was three years ago.
Steve Hamm: No. The industry and [00:02:00] indeed healthcare in general is in the midst of a massive changes due to a host of causes, including, you know, the COVID crisis and many other things, personalized medicine, lots of shifts. If you could talk about how the big stresses and new opportunities are affecting Novartis and how it's responding,
Loic Giraud: The COVID situation is affecting everybody in this fall. Right. So we have more than 7 billion. Uh, before and , uh, the restriction that , uh, COVID has , uh, um, bought for in demo of mobility. Um, the increase number of, of , um, this is, is as well as the number of deaths , um, as affected the world population and the economy.
Right. If you think about a company like ours, you know, and then you can, of course we are in the sector to help , um, people's life. Right. Uh, and as I had mentioned before, we don't produce vaccine. Um, however, I think we've , um, if , well, they did our supports. Um, to be able to fight this pandemic, that first of all, we have provided access to medicine in [00:03:00] pretreatment or, or in post treatment of , um, COVID.
We have provided access to resources, B data and science. So wherever is researching solutions for the vaccine or treatment are able to accelerate. Um, visit discoveries and , uh, and most recently , um, we've agreed with several other companies to make use of our facilities to supply vaccines. Right. And, and I think this is , um, To help , um, to fight COVID and to die, to bring back normal life to people.
Um, on the other side, I think as part of the coffee, our company is facing many challenges. The first one , um, for our patients, there's a restricted access to medicine today because the patients don't visit the healthcare professionals. He and the hospitals are dang surgeries. It's difficult to a whole [00:04:00] patient in two tires.
And , um, when you are clear , uh, all of his frustrations , um, we've, we've actually realized that we need to find different ways to be able to treat and support the patients that need care. At the same time, we haven't had 20,000 employees in the company. And since more than a year, 90% of our workforce is working from home. And we also had to adapt. Um, we had to adapt and we are using , uh, a lot of digital technology and new ways of working. We have introduced where we call it a choice of responsibility where people can work. Um, from anywhere at any point of time.
Steve Hamm: right.
Now you, I wanted just to drill down on one thing that you said there, you talked about how the COVID has put a lot of pressure on the healthcare system, because it's got to do two things at once to deal with, with, with COVID and also deal with all the other diseases [00:05:00] and problems and health problems that people have.
What kind of adaption adaptation are you? Are you working on in that area? I thought you said you were, you know, there was some changes that had to be made.
Loic Giraud: So Steve, I think if you think about the, in the past, when you used to have a clinical client, You used to actually ask your patient to go to the hospital to be treated. And , uh, but nothing. The simple example, we will send a treatment to the patient. Um, I think you have seen in the last one year, the increase of telemedicine. Um, that you also see that the engagement that we had with our HTP, we used to visit the HCP, but now we cannot visit the HCP. So the way we, Paul promotes the use and the treatment of our, for our product has changed the way we have engaged with the regulation has also changed. The way we manufacture outright is changing the way we talked with our employees.
[00:06:00] This pandemic has also
Steve Hamm: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really amazing when you think about it. Cause you know, Your industry and healthcare were already undergoing a massive transformation, then there's a crisis. And then there are, there are added opportunities to actually accelerate change. So it's really an amazing dynamic time in the industry.
And I imagine that the data and technology are playing a big role in how you respond. Um, so recently you got a new CIO, Elizabeth Theophile , uh, she hasn't announced a major transformation initiative and has given you a new role, please explain the initiative.
Loic Giraud: So yeah, so I guess mean has been appointed our CIO back in October and , um, you know, in the recent announcement we made pretty much, we've decided to change. The way we operate , uh, in information [00:07:00] technology , um, and those feelings and for that , um, so first and foremost , um, the industry is changing and it's changing very rapidly and the, the technology is and it is quite essential in the day-to-day business operation today. As more and more employees adopt tech savvy and more employees at the wants to work with technology to achieve their goals. And when we look at the way we were organized, it was too often , um, um, a segregation between expectation from our business and the times to execute and deliver solutions. So our transformation aims to bring more, focus, more speed, and added value for our employees, our patient and health care providers. So when we look at focus, we only want to ensure we are walking on [00:08:00] business needs, not necessarily business ones, but we also want to allocate resource on what matters most. What mattered most for the employees, the shareholders and our patients. We also want to organize our self against what's a core competence that we want to have within the technology transformation CEO, vice was appointed in 2018. Establish a new strategy. And his title sheet includes a particular section on how do we go big on data and digital. We want that Novartis to reimagine medicine for the use of digital technology. And we want to get data and data science to be the center of this transformation. But also when you look at speed, [00:09:00] We want to make sure we are Nimbin and Amber, we want to make sure we move into a product based mobile organization and by doing so we have to get 40% productivity. And we also want to make sure that it's productivity is invested to deliver value to the customers. So you made new a hole that I am expecting to provide digital product and solution because the organization I want to actually, to this organization to digitalize every single processes that we have, but also to try to blame you sort of give innovation that is powered by data and data. Yes.
Steve Hamm: Is there an example of an area within the business where you're doing this digital transformation that you can kind of drill down into and explain, you know, what you're doing and why the transformation, why the technology is so important in that area?
Loic Giraud: So, if you think [00:10:00] about , um, I I'll maybe take three examples to help you out, right? So if you look at the value chain of an organization like ours, you start and, and you'll research. So you'll research trucks and you're going to a development of your truck. Then you manufacture that drug and then you're, you're getting access to that harmful cells to a patient.
Now, if I take the example of the research , right, we have the explosion of data internally and externally, and the use of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and data science, but also cloud. You're now able to utilize a much , um, a much larger amount of dataset to be able to process information and discover , um, target population buttons and, and connect , um, different insight that you could never [00:11:00] have done before. And when you think about , uh, the time it takes to bring it to market, it's about 12 years today. From the time you start your research, the time you get the first time access to a patient, it is 12 years by the use of data. We do believe that we can reduce that time from 12 years to nine years. Right. But we also believe that , uh, efforts to get much more access to patients at a more affordable cost.
Okay. That's one example. If I take another example on , um, if you look at the, our industry , um, the patients wants to own their data and the patients they wants to have. Personalized access to medicine. So we are actually working to provide drug and services, to support at home, such as [00:12:00] software as medical device.
And you're actually providing a treatment to your patient and a solution. And this digital solution adds patient to receive a better treatment.
Steve Hamm: Let me make sure I'm understanding. So the healthcare provider gets this software tool that helps them , uh, you know, either diagnose or figure out what the right treatment is for the PA for a particular patient, correct?
Loic Giraud: exactly that can be in the diagnosis phase. They couldn't be in the treatment phase. If you think about , um, I believe there's more than 60% of our patients that would complete their treatment.
Steve Hamm: so you could also use software as kind of a reminder to the patient of, Oh, it's time to take this medicine and things like that, because a lot of people use those little plastic containers. And even with that, you can lose track of where you are, things like that. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Hey, in the, in that previous answer, you mentioned the cloud as, [00:13:00] as being an important part of the digital transformation.
Could you drill into that a little bit more? What is the role of the data cloud in particular and the new initiative?
Loic Giraud: Yeah. You know, I've been working in this area for 20 years. And , um, for the first 10 years of my career, a lot of data was created when it was difficult, difficult to consume because there was no system that was able to process the volume of data was created and to be able to retrieve the information in a, in a due time , um, in the last five years, If I overhear that data and the every other year you would find it incredibly source of data. And in an organization like ours, 90% of the data we have is [00:14:00] unused. And if you are able to ingest your height and link your data, You have an incredible source of know-how. So when I look at the cloud, the cloud is an accelerator for , um, knowledge, interpretation and insight generation, and we would never be able to get access to this data in a timely manner with any other technology. When we started out that journey four years ago, we didn't think we would be able to have , um, the outcome that we are getting today. We didn't think the volume of data will be so important re we need and things that technology will be mature so fast. We didn't think we could consume what we have, the investment that has been made , uh, to technology companies.
A system integrator the end-user company in this area using kind of [00:15:00] a, and depolarize help us to be able to accelerate the digital transformation.
Steve Hamm: that is really interesting. You know, it's funny just yesterday I was involved with a group that was discussing a new phenomenon or new thought called warm data. And the way it's explained is if you just hold out your hand and look at your hand, All the, all your fingers, all the partial of your hand are where we have the data that we know about.
That's, that's familiar that we can, that we can easily access, but they said it's the gaps between the fingers. That's really often about other softer stuff. It might be human relationships. It might be psychology. It might be just complexity within a system. And that's the stuff that we don't know so well, and it struck me that that is really a great example of why cloud data is so important.
The data cloud is so important because all of those other elements can be there. They can be. [00:16:00] Present in the context because of the cloud. Whereas in the old days you had, Oh, this pipeline and that pipeline and the other pipeline, but now you can just really get a much bigger picture. And I, and I imagine that's what you're experiencing now at Novartis.
Correct.
Loic Giraud: Exactly. Steve, if you think about the. Every point of interaction in our , um, in our processes, you either create collaborate or consume data. The data is your own. The data is one of somebody else it's probably called private, but I think the connection of his data points, it is what make you knowledge rich.
And that is actually where your competitive advantage. So beating the, the time of your hands or in the joints of your fingers or in your skin, this is all data points.
Steve Hamm: right. Yeah.
Okay. Very good. So even though you're a young man, you've had quite a bit of experience in business and in it. And I just I'd like to understand, you know, from all that spirit, [00:17:00] what leadership and management lessons have you picked up along the way that are really that you're applying now at Novartis?
Loic Giraud: It's interesting. You say that , um, The first thing I would say Stevie's is I consider myself for newbies. And when I say is that UBS is , um, have a desire to unlearn and relearn continuously. I don't want to sit there and, and I've actually observed that. Um, whenever you sit there , you, you become all veteran. Um, so I, one of the things which I've learned in decoration is what gets you somewhere. We not get you to the next place. So this is actually a mindset thinking of, okay, you get somewhere. I don't know what you've learned. And if you learn something , um, the second finger, we'll say that. Well, we fax a lot of people to walks with instinct and emotions, but , um, being a data guy, I really, I really want to walk with facts.
So I'm very curious and, [00:18:00] and I'm trying to run my facts and I drive the directions and decision based on the facts. There's the first thing I will say is, is that put his biggest Skeeter said people can have his listening skills. If you're really listen, and I'm going to say, listen, you really listened to what the person is telling you.
You learn so much. And if you can connect what you're learning, you have a huge source of insight. And if you associate that with empathy and emotional intelligence, you can totally become a new leader.
Steve Hamm: Yeah, that's interesting. I think that's the importance of listening and listening deeply, you know, to understand, you know, when I think about so many experiences I've had in my professional life, you know, in meetings, it's almost like people listen, just to see when the moment is that somebody is going to end a sentence, that they can come in and say something [00:19:00] else, you know?
And I think that that's kind of a product of kind of a competitive internal competitiveness that really isn't. Very constructive, but , uh, I think w the kind of listening you're talking about is really constructive and really can, can , uh, you know, help us make important significant advances, not just incremental , but, but the bigger ones, you know, now we've talked about, go ahead.
Loic Giraud: if I may compliment that, you know, because , um, I'm gonna do, I'm a true believer that when people would open up and you're really listen, you don't have to answer this. You just have to say, thank you.
Steve Hamm: Thank you. Um, let's get back into some of the details about the data cloud. I know that Novartis is a snowflake customer. When and why did the company start using snowflakes technology?
Loic Giraud: so if you, if you, if you'd take few minutes back what we've just discussed, so. Um, at every point of interaction within the enterprise for sissies, we cleared or consumed data. Um, most of his data , uh, not connected, not curated and not accessible. Um, To make them [00:20:00] accessible and connected , um, in a timely manner, we actually , um, embark into , uh, um, a digital transformation that is powered by big data technology.
So when we started to move off the data pipeline into the cloud, we actually realized that the data is very complex. And it comes with , uh, the big data and the online comes with a lot of intelligent technology. So we are tying to find a solution which help us to simplify , um, the, the, the migration to the cloud, and also to be able to process and integrate a large volume of data sets at speed. And that's when we, we actually look at a solution like snowflake, I called snowflake as a data warehouse on the cloud. So we've, I think our first interaction with snowflake was probably in the late 2019, but we start yet. We started to use activity snowflake in 2020.
[00:21:00] Steve Hamm: so that was right about when COVID came.
Loic Giraud: He was hired at a time when COVID came.
Steve Hamm: And did it make a difference in how you were able to respond to COVID?
Loic Giraud: COVID as such, but I think what it did is help us to accelerate our digital transformation , um, on, I think, as I said , um, transfer form of workload from on-prem to the cloud , uh, but also to tie to , um, To actually blame , um, spit in access to information to be able to walk across multiple cloud , uh, but also to buy in cost efficiency.
When, when COVID came, we had to be extra careful on where do we invest. And I think stuff like Airbus to , um, to get better outcome for the money we invest.
Steve Hamm: Yeah. And I guess during COVID because doctors, I mean, people weren't going to the doctor [00:22:00] doctors, weren't treating patients diseases weren't being discovered. So your therapies weren't being described , uh, prescribed as quite as much. So it must have been a. It must've been a real , um, serious matter for the company to cut costs and be as efficient as possible.
So I could see how, you know, all the data analytics, adding to efficiency would be very critical at that point. Um, let's go into now. Uh, and snowflake, can you focus in on a couple of uses that you're putting the technology to kind of describe the benefits , um, for your team and also for the business?
Loic Giraud: So, as I mentioned, Stacy, we. We'll use snowflake as a data warehouse on the clouds. Um, you know, the data platform, we have a set of data Lake that are organized by business domain. And from this data Lake, we are creating digital products and digital products are using snowflake and the technology [00:23:00] to combine different data sets. And to use the business logic, this data set to particular, be a respond to certain business problems. So if I look at few examples , um, the first use case we did in snowflake is to , uh, process incentive compensation and calculation for our field. Um, but we also use no fake for. The next generation engagement or how do we engage with it?
She PNH years. And now we starting to use no flakes for clinical high when he building our manufacturing footprint, a financial forecast. So at every point of time where we have a use case that needed this solution, we intend to use snowflake to be able to , um, I got a gate and consumed the dataset into a very simple , um, visual information.
Steve Hamm: that's really interesting because when I think about the development of [00:24:00] the modern corporation, one of the significant things was that the corporation divided into basically units functional units or, or business units. And. Each of them. Every one of them started operating a little bit in isolation, but by using the data Lake , you're, you're able to basically put a lot of data from a lot of different functions in one place, and they can start to have a broader view of what they do and how they interact with the company.
So, yeah, you know, um, are you, are you doing anything with snowflakes data marketplace?
Loic Giraud: So we actually don't use the market place as such. We accurate creating our own marketplace. So we , um, snowflake is part of our ecosystem, but we have , uh, in our we have different solutions and, and we also have different data sources. So we wanted to gain access to our data no matter where they reside and ends, we've decided to create a custom [00:25:00] market list.
Steve Hamm: Are but you know, it's interesting when I do think about it, I was talking to somebody about this yesterday. When you have, you know, a marketplace that's public and where a lot of companies and their suppliers and customers are, they're working together and sharing data.
And then you have all these third party data vendors in the same place. It's really not a data Lake anymore. It's a data ocean. I mean, you really, you can envision a time in the future when. You know, large percentages of the data in the world is available with permission for people to share and to mix. I mean, this isn't that kind of a, I mean, am I wrong?
Is that a, is that a big idea that could be powerful for business?
Loic Giraud: This is an amazing ID having in the years to come. Data exchange between company would be essential. I think right now , the, the people that are still, or the companies are still trying to understand , um, what's the value of the [00:26:00] asset they have with the data. And in fact, actually a lot of companies are reluctant to share an exchange, but I think there's much more value by , um, Exchanging data across industry or across part of the same industry to provide the better value for the patient.
Um,
Steve Hamm: um, so, you know, you've been doing this migration of your data to the cloud over the past couple of years. It's a big transformation. It's, it's a big thing for an organization to do. So I wanted to, I wanted to. Um, look at what the challenges are that you've faced as you've done this and how you've dealt with them and how you overcome them.
Loic Giraud: It's an excellent question, Steve. I think if I reflect on, when we started the cloud journey in 2016, there was a lot of skepticism on [00:27:00] the organization. First and foremost, I think there was a lot of , uh, skepticism because of the security fight. People are fed. If you blamed your data to the cloud, you're not in control. Um, and this is becoming unsecure then. Um, the second challenge we found out is that , um, it was an immature , uh, ecosystem, a lot of players, a lot of technologies, technologies change and activity rapidly. And , uh, and we don't, he know where to invest. The third is, is. Um, it's not a single technology set anymore.
You actually integrate , um, a set of , um, components to be able to build a platform. And , uh, how do you do that in such a way that you use modular enough that you can exchange with component as the technology mature and develop? Then I think that the challenge became access to talent. [00:28:00] He knows a cloud technology is only 10 years old and , uh, it takes probably 15 to 20 years , um, for the world economy to create the talent pool that is required to be able to work say, so how do we get access to Newfoundland when they don't exist?
And what did you do with your own workforce? And on top of all of this, the regulator decided to impose , um, data, residency law. So in the class you used to build a platform and the platform, you can host everything, but now you ask staff to federate that, that from according to regulators, These are some of the challenges we had and, and, and I'm sure that there will be more to come.
Um, but we've, we've typed with deck take care of this challenge as they came. Um, we work with take Brockness like yours , um, like AWS or Microsoft. We work with our system integrators. Um, we've created , um, a training camp for our [00:29:00] employees and we have equity and it makes you innovation workforce. Um, funds universities in other that we have a new talent pool.
Steve Hamm: Basically responding to the changes in technology. I mean like really getting data science programs. The engineering programs kind of cloud infrastructure programs going, or are they lagging behind the technology?
Loic Giraud: Yeah. I think if there's a lot of universities at , uh, Um, I've taken the cloud and the digital already years ago , but, but I mean, every program over at university , um, education program takes five to six years to be developed. And the technology material that activity faster, it's not so important about what, which technology said they learn, but it's, it's more important to learn about the, how do you
Um, the skill set values, but if you're not, not to operate in the cloud, if you have a product mindset, if you are a software engineer, [00:30:00] I think you can adapt and to newer technology. And that, that is actually what this university has done. They've created this curriculum for people and, and they already learn very fast.
Steve Hamm: so it's almost like they're creating these. You've heard of the idea of T-shaped people, people who have kind of, they're not just one thing. They're not just burrowing into one topic. They have a lot of flexibility in the way they think. And, and, and kind of the, the, they're almost intubate inter disciplinary people in one, you know, that kind of thing.
, um, now I'm going to ask you to put on your visionary cap and, and look out five years or more. How do you see data affecting healthcare, business and society?
Loic Giraud: if I look at this pandemic, which our staff, I think we've done something extraordinary within 12 months, we were able to even look. Five or six Lexi.
This is actually unprecedented event where people, at least the forces and these vaccines are [00:31:00] the gets into such a short time time. It's actually the collaboration and exchange of information. If I look at, if I now take this into our sector, I believe the insurance care provider and the health care manufacturer will work together.
And I think we discussed before, but that would be probably a lot of areas where we have exchange of data and information, because the value chain that will help us to return more value to patients. And.
Steve Hamm: Good. I thought that was a really good answer. Um, so look at the end, we always try to ask a personal question. That's a little softer. Um, so I wanted to ask you why, you know, what you had many of choices that you could, you could choose in terms of, you know, what career, what industry you'd get into. Why did you choose healthcare?
Loic Giraud: So Steve, I think [00:32:00] the, you always try to join the company for a purpose. And in my life, my grandfather died from prostate cancer. When you were 72, in 2000, when my dad was , um, 58, he got prostate cancer. And I just started my County at that time. And I said, look, if I can do something to help, I will try to do so.
And , um, this is one reason why I joined the pharmaceutical industry and I'm planning to use my knowledge and mindsets and skills to be able to , um, help to cure disease.
Steve Hamm: well, that's a really good answer. And. It's always amazing to me when I hear from people about their motivations for choosing a career or an industry. And very often there is a particular reason, something that happened with them or something that [00:33:00] they perceived. So that's a good one. So I want to thank you so much for talking to us today.
I think we've covered a lot of territory. I think we've learned a lot about, you know, technology transformations about an industry and also about leadership. I thought to me, one of the most interesting things you said was about the art of listening, really to listen deeply and with empathy. And with the idea that maybe you won't even answer, you'll just say thank you.
And I think that is a, a wonderful bit of wisdom that a lot of people in the world in business, but just, but even just in our personal lives could follow and, and, you know, we'd probably be happier as a result of it. So again, thank you so much for your time.