Unconventional But True Leadership May Ultimately Solve the Pandemic
“The pharmaceutical industry has completed the impossible,” writes Morten Nielsen, Global Managing Partner for WittKieffer’s Life Sciences Practice, “making safe and effective coronavirus vaccines in...
“The pharmaceutical industry has completed the impossible,” writes Morten Nielsen, Global Managing Partner for WittKieffer’s Life Sciences Practice, “making safe and effective coronavirus vaccines in under a year when it took decades of research and trial and error to develop effective inoculations for the flu, polio and other diseases.”
Writing in Life Sciences Leader, Nielsen notes that, while there is much praise to go around, there are significant challenges ahead in distributing the COVID-19 vaccines and getting people to receive them. In the article, Nielsen maps out a few ways that leaders in the life sciences can get this done:
- Explore and leverage all no-fault insurance mechanisms to ensure that the risk of manufacturing liability will not prevent distribution of the vaccines worldwide
- Cooperate fully with President-elect Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board in the U.S. and similar bodies across the world
- Rethink relationships with hospitals and healthcare providers
- Prioritize reputational benefits over profits
- Orchestrate clear PR campaigns and public service announcements
“Unusual times call for unusual leadership,” Nielsen concludes. “It is a collective responsibility to increase adoption and acceptance of this vaccine in a way that the medical and biopharma community have not had to for other products. At least not in 100 years.”
