Paulo Teixeira, Country Manager Pfizer Portugal: "We have seen a paradigm shift towards prevention, diagnosis and cure"
With a career full of achievements and difficulties, and with more than 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry, Paulo Teixeira, Country Manager of Pfizer in Portugal, has held several senior positions in the areas of Sales and Marketing in the companies Abbott, Grünenthal and Wyeth. During a 17-year career at Pfizer, he has led the Global Pharmaceutical Business Unit established from 2013 to 2016.
Paulo Teixeira holds a degree in Sociology from the University of Coimbra, an Executive MBA from ISCTE-IUL INDEG Business School and a Master in Marketing Management from Instituto Superior de Gestão.
"We know that in the future, companies will be significantly different, and employees will have a greater role in defining how they want to work," has said Paulo Teixeira.
What are the main challenges of your current responsibility?
From what I see as my core mission, the great challenge is to ensure that the Portuguese people have rapid and equitable access to the benefits that our innovative medicines and vaccines bring to their health and well-being.
For this, it is essential to work together, cooperating and partnering with the different parties involved: authorities, health professionals, patients, carers, among others. In this sense, it is essential to ensure alignment and a unified voice in a company with a matrix structure, organised into independent and very diverse business units.
In your industry, what are the main current trends that you would highlight?
We live in a remarkable era of medical research and scientific progress that will result in future breakthroughs and cures that will transform the lives of millions of people in the years to come.
We have seen a paradigm shift towards prevention, diagnosis and cure
We have seen a paradigm shift towards prevention, diagnosis and cure. In addition to precision/personalised medicine, it will be possible, for example, to predict the probability of diagnosis of certain diseases, which can act in prevention and even cure, making the diseases of today become the care of the past. Finding the balance between short-term "pressure" and a long-term strategic vision is a real challenge.
Finally, I want to emphasise what is central: people. Making sure that we have the necessary skills in the company to respond to a constantly changing environment, reconciling the individual expectations of each employee in the times we live in where we ask for "more with less", making sure that each person working at Pfizer is motivated and committed to our mission with health in Portugal.
At the same time, the pressure on health systems, with limited resources to respond to the growing demand for medical care and the expectations of citizens, means that governments and entities payers are increasingly focusing on the real-life outcomes of using products and procedures, on which they measure success and thus on which they make companies' remuneration depend.
Increased scrutiny and demand on the value of the answers we offer, technological evolution, a new concept of health care, the entry of new players, among others, impose a new business and organisational model. The companies that adapt the most will be the ones that survive.
In the context of Business Analytics and Business Intelligence, what is your company's relationship to data and business-critical information?
Recent years have seen a significant expansion in the volume and diversity of clinical information, a trend driven largely by continued innovation and the large-scale use of electronic medical records, high-resolution imaging and genomics.
This new, rapidly evolving data ecosystem provides a critical opportunity for business decision-making at all levels: optimising innovation, improving the efficiency of research and clinical trials, and providing new tools for healthcare professionals, consumers, regulators and funders.
What implications will these trends have for businesses and individuals?
Achieving the benefits that result from Business Analytics and Business Intelligence will require a change in the way companies organise themselves and their decision-making process. Strong leadership is essential to respond to the initial resistance to a model that bases its decisions on data and less on internal knowledge.
What is the distinguishing factor that highlights the relationship between companies and their customers?
Knowing the needs of the customer is fundamental. How each company is able to meet these needs will be what sets them apart. Business Intelligence and Business Analytics skills are key here. You can only change what you can measure. The challenge is to be able to strategically guide the selection of data to meet business needs and priorities.
It is also in the ability to integrate, overcoming information silos that often result from the existence of organisational silos. The management and integration of data generated at all stages of the value chain, from research to real-world use, is a key requirement for companies to obtain maximum value from innovation.
It is necessary to provide companies with a combination of skills: management, statistics, programming, data management, etc., and systems that ensure the rapid dissemination of information and results, making them an effective management tool.
All this data needs to be transformed into information that supports companies' decision-making
In today's world, where the available information is colossal, "filters" are needed. All this data needs to be transformed into information that supports companies' decision-making in differentiating areas and provides a clear competitive advantage.
What will business look like in 2030?
They will necessarily be very different. We are moving towards a more collaborative way of working, with very different partners to those we have worked with so far. There will be a heavy reliance on technology.
They will be less hierarchical, more flexible companies, where employees will have a greater role in defining how they want to work. I believe they will be more genuine, reflecting a sincere concern for society in their actions and decisions.
For you, innovation is...
For us at Pfizer: "Innovation is more than being ahead, it's about being there for you. To innovate is to respond to people's expectations and needs, providing them with something precious for a complete journey: health and well-being.