Daiichi Sankyo Europe - When compassion for patients meets passion for innovation

WHEN COMPASSION FOR PATIENTS MEETS PASSION FOR INNOVATION

C OV E R STO RY

WHEN COMPASSION FO MEETS PASSION FOR I Madalina Burghelea, Head of Advanced Analytics at Daiichi Sankyo Europe on the fundamental role of data strategy at the company.

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OR PATIENTS INNOVATION 3

DAIICHI SANKYO IS A GLOBAL PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY PROVIDING INNOVATIVE SERVICES AND PRODUCTS ACROSS THE WORLD, WITH SUBSIDIARIES IN MORE THAN 25 COUNTRIES. ith corporate origins in Japan and a heritage of more than 120 years of scientific expertise, Daiichi Sankyo draws on its rich legacy of innovation to help improve patients’ lives.

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Joining us from Daiichi Sankyo Europe is Madalina Burghelea, Head of Advanced Analytics, Specialty Medicines, who shines a light on the role of leading-edge data strategy in the company’s innovative approach to discovering, developing and delivering medicines for those who need it most.

“At Daiichi Sankyo in Europe we care for every heartbeat,” begins Madalina. “Our goal in the Specialty Medicines division is to protect people from cardiovascular disease through our expertise in providing innovative medicines and to help those who suffer from it. As well as our commitment to providing medicines for a diverse range of patients, we support the clinical community and healthcare ecosystems across Europe to ensure that, jointly with medical professionals, we are able to help those who are affected by cardiovascular disease today.

“I lead the Advanced Analytics team at Daiichi Sankyo Europe, which is responsible for the implementation of state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence solutions at our division. Our goal is to use technology to solve business questions and deepen our understanding of the customers we serve, so they can best serve their patients. Our holistic team starts with a simple business question and ends with operative outcomes, using Machine Learning, GenAI or any other technologies.

“I initially joined Daiichi Sankyo Europe as a Business Analytics Translator

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“HERE AT DAIICHI SANKYO EUROPE, WE VALUE COLLABORATION AND WE HAVE EXCELLENT RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT TEAMS IN THE COMPANY, DEFINED BY A FEELING OF TRUST” and I have built the entire Advanced Analytics team and framework from scratch. Much of the time I have felt like a startup founder.

One of my greatest motivations has been the fact that our work will actually make a difference in the lives of many people who suffer from cardiovascular disease. This is a great privilege and I remind myself of it every morning when going to work.”

Daiichi Sankyo Europe is the European subsidiary of Daiichi Sankyo, the second-largest pharmaceutical company in Japan with a global presence. Madalina describes the company culture as one in which all employees can maximise their potential, with ample opportunities to learn, grow, develop and effectively contribute to the company’s success. In her niche of the business, Madalina is sometimes even reminded of a startup mentality, where innovation, agility and ambition are actively encouraged.

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“My team and I are allowed to develop exciting new projects, with the freedom to pinpoint what is working and what might not be working so well, suggesting solutions openly,” says Madalina.

“So for instance when we think about Data Governance, in the beginning, it was not a topic that fell under my responsibilities. But I was able to contribute to our Data Governance strategy and it has since become one of the most beneficial projects for the business. This was possible because the company allowed me to start new projects and allowed me to take projects outside of my initial responsibility.

“Here at Daiichi Sankyo Europe, we value collaboration and we

have excellent relationships between the different teams in the company, defined by a feeling of trust. We share and reuse as much wisdom and insights as we can. This is very important for us, not only from the cost perspective but from the collaboration perspective as well.”

So how have Madalina and her Advanced Analytics team deployed innovation in the data strategy at Daiichi Sankyo Europe?

“In Data Offence, we work with our stakeholders on innovative ways to engage with their customers and meet their needs.

We are personalising customer engagements with the data we have available and we strive to understand and serve their preferences. This goes from channel engagement to content personalisation and beyond, supporting production of the right amount of medicines or summarising market insights with Generative AI.

“I am a firm believer that in order to have a successful data strategy we need to balance Data Offence (business value) with Data Defence (stability and scalability),” explains Madalina. “Innovation must happen in both, simultaneously, otherwise we will lose our balance.

“On the other side, in Data Defence, we have introduced state-of-theart Data Governance and Data Architecture frameworks in the organisation like Data Mesh, to make sure that Data Defence is equally innovative and supports business needs. We have also 7

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introduced state-of-the-art platforms to support our work and deliver optimal results.

We are using Generative AI to continuously improve our speed and documentation quality.

We continuously automate our models, and this is how we can keep working on more and more business questions.

“It is all about balance: if you only have innovation in Data Offence (the business use cases) but you still rely on traditional methods and frameworks, soon you will have a mismatch of speed.

“The risk here is if there is too much focus on the business case or value, but the technology or data elements lag behind, the imbalance between the two priorities only worsens over time – eventually becoming a blocker for innovation, scaling and growth.”

Elaborating on Daiichi Sankyo’s holistic approach to data governance and data mesh, Madalina reiterates the inherent interconnectedness between new technologies and data strategy.

“When I joined Daiichi Sankyo, I was responsible for the AI strategy,” says Madalina.

“Since then, the first task I have 9

taken on was to introduce Data Governance to the organisation.

Without Data Governance there can be no scalable innovation and AI. “I realised that standard or traditional approaches of introducing Data Governance have failed so far and therefore I had to find a new way: gamification.

“Gamification has worked very well as an engagement strategy and convinced me that building more educational games is a promising way to go. It connects education with a reward for the parts of the

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organisation that have implemented data governance or have implemented AI products.

“I thought ‘Why not? Why can't we use gamification to improve our Data Governance?’ The first instance involved three Lego boxes, a (data) catalogue of pieces in those boxes and an analytics task: build a given figurine. This simple exercise illustrated how in under one minute you could build a figurine, if you used the Data Catalogue. During this game, players also understood who the Data Owners and Data Stewards are and their roles. This

was an incredible way to learn and understand why Data Governance is important. This has been followed by the real-life appointment of Data Owners and Stewards across the organisation and building the very first version of our own Data Catalogue.

“I am very proud that, later on, my team continued this process and introduced Data Mesh at Daiichi Sankyo Europe. We have built some of the very first data products and soon our AI models will benefit tremendously from this work: we will be able to automate our models and have them re-run in three hours instead of three weeks.

“One of the data products I’m particularly proud of is our Customer Engagement platform. Here, the main use case we were working on was trying to optimise how we engage with the customers in each of the European countries we operate in. What is special about this solution is that we moved from a very decentralised approach to a more central approach.

“Now, let's say we have a new country that comes on board, we can fully reuse the entire experience of what has been built already at the other offices or regions because we have developed a central repository of information and insights. This has helped to promote collaboration and the sharing of best practices between the countries tremendously,

“GAMIFICATION HAS WORKED VERY WELL AS AN ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY AND CONVINCED ME THAT BUILDING MORE EDUCATIONAL GAMES IS A PROMISING WAY TO GO” while also increasing how quickly we can onboard new countries at Daiichi Sankyo.

According to Madalina, forging a strong data culture was an imperative foundation for the emerging deployment of AI and other technology projects at Daiichi Sankyo Europe. But it would not have been possible without the emergence of Advanced Analytics Translators at the company, pivotal colleagues who act as intermediaries between the Data Science Team and broader business units or stakeholders.

“A strong holistic Data Culture is crucial for any AI application,” explains Madalina. “Sometimes there seems to be a gap between the AI teams and the rest of the organisation. In my experience, it is critical to bridge this gap if you want successful AI products.

“Often the challenge is the Data Scientist does not know what is needed and the Business Stakeholders 11

don’t know what is possible. That is the gap we must cover!

“The solution we found to be most effective was to build so-called Advanced Analytics Translators – links between the business need and the technical possibilities. I was a Translator myself, and I can tell you it is a very challenging role. You are actively translating between two parties and you need knowledge from both worlds.

“When I worked as a Translator, what I found works best is giving many examples of other solutions in comparative situations. For instance, we would discuss several case studies where AI is being used, in situations relevant to different departments.

Eventually, this leads to greater awareness and lateral thinking where they start asking their own organic questions about AI, relevant to their roles. It fosters a creative process, encourages fresh ideas opens up new possibilities.

“At Daiichi Sankyo Europe we have built a dedicated Translator organisation, with Translators in each of the countries we operate in. This ensures that the local organisations develop AI knowledge organically.

The Translators act as a gate to and from the local organisations to the central Data Science team.

Additionally, the Translators educate on what AI can do for the organisation and advocate for Data 12

Literacy and even Data Governance.

“Furthermore Data Culture starts with Data Literacy. Here, we used gamification again to help our endeavours. We have built quizzes addressing the most uncomfortable questions we received so far, including: Will AI take my job? When will AI replace Business Intelligence?

How do you manage your data? Etc. “This helped address the most common misunderstandings or fears and created a high level of psychological safety. This new level of understanding of technology is what allowed us to continue to think about data holistically.”

Looking ahead to the future, Madalina describes how AI will be crucial to the company’s operations, growth and plans in the years to come.

“Currently, AI is at the base of our customer engagement across the different affiliates at Daiichi Sankyo Europe – and that is here to stay!” says Madalina.

“Personalisation and content are also areas where AI already brings a lot of value.

“We are constantly finding new ways to use Generative AI, from optimising our technical work and documentation to generating market insights for optimisation or content

creation for events. That will indeed transform our work. We have a very competent team with great expertise to develop on these new technologies.

“We will continue to use innovative ways and gamifications to introduce AI technologies in many areas of our organisation. In the past, we have created games to illustrate the countries where AI products exist and where Data Governance is in place.

This created a high engagement and allowed us to recognise the efforts of the local organisations.

“We will continue to balance Data Offence and Defence: we will work on new business questions, but we will also automate and improve our processes. Only then we can develop a scalable and stable foundation.”

Wrapping up our conversation, Madalina reflects on what she’s

learned while building the Advanced Analytics team at Daiichi Sankyo Europe and highlights the importance of championing diversity at the company.

“I am very proud to say that I currently lead one of the most diverse teams in the company: almost everyone comes from a different culture,” beams Madalina. “This is one of our core values in the team.

And it does not stop with cultures: a lot of us come from backgrounds that have nothing to do with AI or even computer science. But we are all linked by the passion we have for data and AI. “I am very supportive of women in tech leadership positions and this is why we try to find and develop more and more females into these roles.

After having dealt with the process myself and knowing firsthand how 13

difficult it can be sometimes, I try my best to support other women.

“Also, such a diverse team needs a different leadership style, where every opinion counts. Our Agile ways of working are at the core of the team: we believe that self-organising and self-managed teams are the present and future and deliver the best results. We encourage initiative and give space for people to develop and grow. Our Agile processes actively support this approach.

“Having been an entrepreneur myself, I can safely say that Daiichi Sankyo Europe is a company in which someone with a start-up mentality can achieve a lot: with courage and determination, every single person can step up and take responsibility for the success of the team. This is how we have built one of the most successful teams I have ever had the opportunity and privilege to lead.”

Learn more about Daiichi Sankyo Europe at www.daiichi-sankyo.eu.

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ONE FOR THE READING LIST “I was recently recommended a very good book that changed my perspective: What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith,” says Madalina.

“I believe as leaders we must constantly change and adapt, now more than ever.

To adapt to the changes in the Generative AI world we must challenge the way we think and embrace diversity.

My team is a model for me: a very diverse way of working, where everyone feels accepted, bringing out the best of us.

REFLECT REGULARLY Madalina believes in proactive reflection among leaders as a means of professional- and self-development.

“I highly recommend doing regular internal and external retrospectives of ourselves as leaders and asking ourselves

what is behind a different point of view: it could be one of our biggest development opportunities.”

EVENT SCHEDULE Madalina is thrilled to be attending several industry events in 2024. In particular, she is excited about the NEXT Pharma Summit in Dubrovnik on May 14-15, 2024.

CONNECTION ENCOURAGED Feel free to reach out to Madalina on LinkedIn to discuss: • AI trends and frameworks • New approaches to Data Governance and Data Strategy • Data Mesh and Data Products experiences • Leading diverse teams • Agile Ways of working

Connect with Madalina

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www.daiichi-sankyo.eu

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