Biopharmaceutical Expert Carsten Thiel on the New Coronavirus, the Importance of Human Connection, and Trusting Your Gut
Carsten Thiel is the president of European commercialization efforts for EUSA Pharma, a global pharmaceutical company specializing in oncology and rare diseases. He holds a doctorate degree in molecular biology and biochemistry, and has contributed to innumerable medical advancements throughout his career. With over 25 years experience as a leader within the pharmaceutical industry, Thiel has a wealth of knowledge on managing stress, leadership tactics, and insight into the topic that currently sits on everybody’s mind: the COVID-19 pandemic.
How have you tackled productivity during these unprecedented times?
More than anything I’ve been so grateful for the extra time I’m able to spend with my family each day. Whereas before this crisis, I would rarely have more than 30 minutes to connect with my family over breakfast and coffee in the morning, we’re now able to get much more time throughout the day together. Yes, like everybody at some points we have been at each other’s throats, but overall it has truly been invaluable.
That being said, when it comes to work I have found that maintaining a similar schedule to before the pandemic has helped me most with my productivity. When you manage such a large team of people, it can be easy to get stuck in the minutiae of day to day problem solving. For that reason, I try to make sure when planning out my day that I have time for portions of my job that will have long-term effects and build a legacy in addition to daily operational tasks.
A leader is also only as productive as the team they run, so I have made it a priority to remain connected to my staff through multiple communication tools. Email, messaging, and video conferencing have all been worked into my management style, as I believe staff engagement is imperative to maintaining a pulse on the current happenings of all employees. It can be easy to feel disconnected and disjointed from your workplace when you’re no longer interacting with your colleagues on a daily basis, so maintaining active communication has definitely been another top priority in keeping up productivity.
How did you come to work in your industry?
Both of my parents worked in the medical field, so from a young age the importance of science in relation to medicine had been impressed upon me. The concept of DNA in particular excited me and turned me on to the idea of molecular biology, which I went on to get my doctorate degree in. After receiving my degree I was actually offered a postdoctoral research position at Harvard University, but while I knew that I loved science, upon reflection I felt that I probably wouldn’t make the best researcher. From the beginning, my biggest desire was to help people, and spending ten to fifteen years working on one molecule sounded maddeningly slow. I was excited to bring innovation directly to the benefit of patients, and for that reason I decided to pursue work within the pharmaceutical industry itself. Some of my most rewarding days in this industry have come from when I have been able to interact directly with those the drugs I have helped distribute and hear their personal stories of resilience.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I think my best advice for bringing your ideas to life is to stick to your convictions. Once in my career I was working on the development and distribution of a colorectal cancer treatment. My team and I had everything ready for introducing the drug to the mass market and producing it, when just before we began roll out we were informed of a biomarker that would indicate how well a patient would respond to the treatment. There were some on my team who thought the best course of action would be to proceed with the launch as planned and not disclose the biomarker, but my gut told me that although this would allow for a much higher profit potential, ethically we would be helping save a lot more lives if we held back the launch. I pushed for this resolution, and we moved forward by not only divulging the information, but also created a standardized test for practitioners to use, provided initial education for doctors on the product, and created a specialized customer support service. The launch ended up being quite successful, and while I can’t take all the credit by any means, I do think it provides a strong argument towards trusting your gut and following that throughout your career.
What advice would you give someone starting out in your field?
The current CEO of Angen, one of the former companies I worked for, said to me “Carsten, I think this century is about biotech, and in about eight years people are going to smile about diseases that we needed to deal with and we couldn’t treat, and we couldn’t cure, and it’s all history.” We have already seen within the past twenty years some astounding medical advancements for common diseases like diabetes and asthma that affirm this statement, but there are still so many underserved populations for diseases that are considered rare. Although the term “rare” in an of itself makes it sound like these diseases are niche and inconsequential, when added up we think there are probably seven thousand rare and ultra-rare diseases, and those diseases are likely affecting thirty million people in the United States alone, so it’s not a small population by any means. Through my career, I have made the transition to working for smaller and smaller companies in an effort to work on rare diseases, and I believe that innovation in that field is the future of the biotech industry.
Also, I think the future lies not only in the advancement of biotechnology, but in the general population getting easily obtainable and accurate medical information. So, it’s not just about developing and progressing the science, but also thinking about how to bring it across to those who need it.
What are your thoughts on the coronavirus?
It has been absolutely terrible to witness those affected by COVID-19, the people who spend time in quarantine and the families who have lost grandma or grandpa to this viral outbreak, as this coronavirus shows mortality mostly in those age 70 and older. The good news is many people are taking appropriate action to prevent infection and thus the spreading of the virus. However, some are overreacting and are more scared than they should be and others are shirking all forms of social distancing and don’t seem to really care at all. There is clearly a lot of miscommunication and misperception in relation to the virus — there’s so much we still don’t know.
What we do know is there are really two risks we should be concerned about. First, a sudden spread of the virus. We saw in Italy this led to a desperate situation in their primary healthcare system. Nurses and doctors in their clinics and hospitals became overwhelmed by their lack of capacity to handle so many patients, and PPE materials became harder and harder to maintain adequate stock of. This kind of sudden spread is what brings an otherwise functioning healthcare system to its knees.
Personally, the second thing I worry about is the admittedly unknown risk of a mutated version of the virus. We are continuously getting a clearer picture of the transmission rate and mortality rate of COVID-19, but what if this new coronavirus mutates like the influenza virus does every year? This may end up being something we are fighting for much longer than we could hope for.
Lastly, estimates are that eventually forty to seventy percent of the world’s population who are socially active may get infected. That is a scary number, but my question is over which time or how many years will that happen? There is a chance that the warmer temperatures still ahead could “dry out” the infection rate, but we see a new outbreak in the coming winter. So it really comes down to winning time to have more people immune and to have a vaccine commercially available. Until then, slowing down the spreading of COVID-19 is the best thing we can do to save more lives.
Has your company had any involvement in the development of a vaccine?
I think everybody is doing whatever they can towards fighting this disease, whether through the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus or treatment for COVID-19 itself. My company has conducted a study at the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital in Italy on the utilization of the monoclonal antibody siltuximab for treating COVID-19 patients who develop serious respiratory complications. We recently announced the preliminary findings, which were that of the first 21 patients treated with siltuximab and followed for up to a week, 33% of patients experienced a clinical improvement with a reduced need for oxygen support, and 43% of patients saw their conditions stabilize, meaning there were no clinically relevant changes. This means that according to the preliminary data over 75% of the patients treated with siltuximab had either stable or improved disease. As I said, this data is all preliminary, but promising and I look forward to what we are able to discover and put forth in the future in terms of treating this disease.
