R&D Swapping: AstraZeneca Lures Mackay From Pfizer To Head Global R&D

Pfizer in turn appoints Mikael Dolsten, an ex-Wyeth executive, as its worldwide R&D president.

Martin Mackay - who has been highly visible in the R&D world, first as Pfizer's top R&D executive, then as head of its small-molecule program -has left Pfizer for AstraZeneca, where he will become worldwide president of R&D, effective July 1. Pfizer, in turn, named Mikael Dolsten, a former Wyeth executive who was Mackay's counterpart on the biologics and vaccines side, as sole president of its worldwide R&D operations.

It's not immediately clear why Mackay jumped ship, and he wasn't available for an interview. But he comes to AstraZeneca at a time of daunting challenges and corresponding changes for the organization. The company is one of those hardest hit by patent expirations between 2010 and 2016, with drugs accounting for 74 percent of its 2008 sales going off patent during that time, according to EvaluatePharma. (Lilly is the only other Big Pharma facing such a huge cliff.) At the same time, AstraZeneca's new product pipeline is perceived to have mixed prospects.

The position Mackay is assuming is new for AstraZeneca; previously, the company had an executive VP of clinical development, Anders Ekblom, and a head of preclinical discovery. The executive in the latter position, Jan Lundberg, left in November, however, to become head of R&D at Lilly (Also see "Eli Lilly Hires AstraZeneca's Jan Lundberg To Replace Steve Paul As Head Of R&D" - Pink Sheet, 13 Nov, 2009.).

At AstraZeneca, Mackay will be responsible for overseeing discovery and development of both large and small molecules across the R&D portfolio. The company is in the middle of transitioning to a new R&D model, which is built around eight innovative medicines units, or I-MEDs, aligned to therapeutic areas, a global medicines development organization, and a portfolio investment board. The I-MEDs are responsible for discovery and early-stage development, then the global development group is responsible for late-stage development. Both Ekblom and the new executive VP of innovative medicines, Menelas Pangalos, -also an ex-Pfizer R&D executive, who joined AstraZeneca early this month - will report to Mackay. (Pangalos, as one of a handful of newly-named chief scientific officers, had been put in charge of Pfizer's neuroscience efforts post-merger.) The investment board consists of senior AstraZeneca executives, including the CEO, CFO, Ekblom, Pangalos, and now Mackay, and will review all major R&D investments, both internal and external.

A third part of AstraZeneca's R&D efforts, the MedImmune R&D unit, which is responsible for biologics discovery and development, also has a new head, Bahija Jallal. But decisions about how it will fit into the new R&D structure will be made once Mackay is on board and probably not implemented before the end of the year. About 25 percent of the company's pipeline was in biologics as of January 2009.

Mackay Led Change At Pfizer R&D

Mackay had a successful career at Pfizer. Succeeding John LaMattina as head of R&D following the debacle with torcetrapib, a major cholesterol drug that failed in costly Phase III trials, he joined a senior management team led by the then-new CEO Jeff Kindler, which set about implementing changes that culminated in the acquisition of Wyeth for $68 billion in 2009. Even in the midst of the ongoing Wyeth integration, the group has been pushing the company to become more efficient, flexible, and innovative.

As part of these efforts, Pfizer announced plans in November 2009 to streamline and simplify its R&D structure, consolidating R&D into five main hubs and cutting R&D staff by 15 percent over an unspecified time period. The consolidation will reduce R&D space by 35 percent (Also see "Pfizer's Global R&D Network: Rapid Integration Means Doing More With Less" - Pink Sheet, 11 Nov, 2009.). Execution of this plan will now fall to Dolsten.

Under Mackay's watch, Pfizer, by necessity, took a realistic appraisal of its limits and exited discovery and early-stage development in key primary care therapeutic areas that had been traditional growth engines -cardiovascular disease, depression, obesity, and bone health, among others - that no longer seemed to have valuable opportunities. In an interview with "The Pink Sheet" DAILY at the time Pfizer announced its plans, Mackay explained, for example, that "We got out of depression not because there isn't medical need, we just think that the mechanisms are not there to really satisfy that medical need (Also see "Pfizer Restructures For A More Flexible Future" - Pink Sheet, 13 Oct, 2008.)."

Mirroring that decision, Mackay has been a proponent of externalization and pre-competitive collaboration among pharma companies. He was one of two Pfizer executives on the board of Viiv, the new HIV joint venture Pfizer has underway with GlaxoSmithKline (Also see "GSK And Pfizer Join Forces In New HIV-Focused Venture" - Pink Sheet, 3 Nov, 2009.). He is a proponent of pre-competitive collaboration, a relatively new concept in the biopharma world, and most recently spoke publicly in favor of it at an energetic, well-attended U.S. India Chamber of Commerce biopharma summit, which he helped to host, in Cambridge, Mass. (Also see "Pre-Competitive Collaboration Would Help Pharmaceutical Productivity Crisis - If Lawyers Could Get Out Of The Way" - Scrip, 11 May, 2010.).

Dolsten has maintained a lower profile, but he has a reputation for pushing aggressively for change. From May 2008 until Pfizer closed on its deal with Wyeth in November 2009, he led Wyeth's R&D organization. Previously, he was head of discovery for Boehringer Ingelheim, the privately owned German pharma, which has a reputation for strong R&D.

"Dolsten has not been visible to investors, but we have heard good things about him," David Risinger, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, said in a note to investors. "Dolsten is deeply rooted in research, and we have heard he is very smart," the note continues.

As Risinger pointed out, InVivoblog in a July 2007 post on potential candidates to head Pfizer R&D following LaMattina's decision to retire, mentioned Dolsten as a potential "change agent." The article stated "Others qualify ... because they've spent their careers in research, not development, and because they haven't had the top R&D job. Michael Dolsten, who runs discovery for Boehringer Ingelheim, is 'A change agent,' says one recruiter. 'He's just that good' "

- Wendy Diller ([email protected])