PHARMACEUTICAL
Great Advice From Great Minds: Pfizer Regional President Nolan Townsend on How Patient Centricity is Vital to Our Future At the 2018 eyeforpharma event in Barcelona, we were fortunate to interview Nolan Townsend, who now serves as Regional President for North America, Rare Disease at Pfizer. Nolan moved from investment banking at Lehman Brothers to a breathtaking array of roles at Pfizer over the last decade. He has been Senior Manager of Worldwide Strategic Planning, Director of Business Operations for Asia Established Products, Marketing Director for Pfizer Korea, Country Manager for Pfizer Ukraine & GIP Cluster Lead Central Asia and Caucuses, Country Manager for Pfizer Romania, Regional President for Africa/ Middle East, India, based in Dubai, and most recently, Regional President for International Developed Markets, Rare Disease. This is a man who has had to negotiate not only numerous corporate positions but also an impressive number of cultural challenges in various parts of the globe. Nolan has done it all with insight and humility, appreciating the opportunities and growing with the responsibilities. Nolan considers patients as his most insightful colleagues. Working in rare diseases, he has built a close partnership between patients 63 | HS&M JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
and professionals, and he values the on-the-ground testimony he gets from people wrestling with those conditions. Only 5% of rare diseases have a viable treatment today, so there’s a long and complicated path ahead to address all the unmet needs in this area. Nolan says that the patient/industry partnership is vital to developing better treatment options. Much of that investigation involves risk-taking. Nolan says “The more
risks you take in R&D, the closer you’ll get to treatments. We have to look in areas where diseases are less well understood. Especially in areas like oncology, we’re looking to deliver value.” He sees this journey as one that inculcates trust. “Society’s trust is our license to operate.” Part of this is supporting the cost of R&D through the price of current medicines. At the same time, we have
