Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Pharmaceuticals: Noah Masika
31 Plays5 years ago
Season 1, Episode 12: Noah Masika is a strategy and analytics consultant with HighPoint Solutions, an IQVIA Company. Listen to Noah talk about drug development and the incentives driving the pharmaceutical industry.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction
00:00:09
Speaker
You're listening to The Wound Dresser, a podcast that uncovers the human side of healthcare. I'm your host, John Neary.
Introducing Noah Messica
00:00:20
Speaker
Today, my guest is Noah Messica. Noah is a strategy and analytics consultant with High Point Solutions, a life science and healthcare consulting firm. He received his master's in chemistry from the University of Maryland and is an incoming MBA candidate at Harvard Business School. Noah, welcome to the show.
00:00:39
Speaker
Thanks, John. Thanks for having me.
Consulting in Life Sciences
00:00:43
Speaker
So first, to get a better sense of the work you do at High Point Solutions, can you describe the clients you work with and the services you aim to provide? Yeah, so we mostly work with a broad range of life sciences companies. But more recently, I've been working with small biotech firms, mostly pre-launch, or maybe to have the first product out. I've worked with a couple larger pharma clients.
00:01:09
Speaker
The bulk of them have been pre-launch clients. And what we focus on, at least in my practice, is somewhat supporting their sales operations from an analytic standpoint. So if you were to think about it, as the company goes through drug development, they've done a lot of market research, so they understand how they're going to position their drug.
00:01:34
Speaker
They understand who they're going to be competing against, how they define their market. And then they purchase data from actually IQVIA, which is the same company I work for. And so at that point, that's when we begin to engage. So we, as analytics and in some ways, data science person, we would help them in the process of cleaning that data, defining their market, understanding the key players. They will work with other clients for understanding the market and segmentation of
00:02:04
Speaker
of key HCPs, healthcare professionals or key healthcare organizations, then they feed that into their overall strategic goals for which channels they want to go through in terms of sales or which HCOs or HCPs they want to focus on or who they want to target.
00:02:25
Speaker
And so we'll advise them throughout this whole process. And then the final product usually is a reporting tool on the business intelligence side that they can use for their sales operations and their commercial analytics monitoring.
00:02:41
Speaker
So, to clarify one thing about the lingo, you said biotech and pharma. Does one of those kind of envelop the other or are biotech and pharma kind of synonymous?
Understanding Biotech vs. Pharma
00:02:52
Speaker
So, I guess for me, I look at it as biotech is biologics versus pharma would be small molecule.
00:03:00
Speaker
Although you do have, you do have some farmer companies, especially the much larger ones would have a portfolio about small molecule biologics. But when I, when I speak to biotech would be biologics and farmer would be small molecule.
00:03:16
Speaker
Could you expand, what's that distinction there between biologics and small molecule? Small molecule, you could think about it as it's made in a lab, a chemical compound, versus biologics, it's grown through a biological process. So also the size of the molecules would be very different. The biological molecules are mostly larger.
Industry Dynamics
00:03:37
Speaker
In general, can you just describe the landscape of the pharmaceutical industry, right? I imagine, like you said, you have like, you know, big players, you probably have some small firms, then you have, you know, research institutions and, you know, more industry focused organizations. Can you kind of give a better picture of that dynamic and how they sort of all play their role in the market? Yeah, I think
00:04:03
Speaker
Now that's kind of a broad question, which I'm not sure if I would be fully qualified to answer, but I can speak to it from the way I view it is, it depends on the portfolio that you're playing. So some of these larger farmer companies, you know, your bears, Novartis, Pfizer, they've got pretty large portfolios in a lot of different therapies that they offer. And they're always shifting in terms of what, and it's kind of driven by reimbursement as well, but they're always shifting their portfolios to
00:04:33
Speaker
to match the market needs and to maximize profit. And then you've got your small biotech firms who are maybe either getting into the market or they just got into the market. So if you look at their drug pipeline, maybe they have one drug approval
00:04:52
Speaker
For maybe 1 indication and they're pushing for a 2nd indication.
Company Categories
00:04:58
Speaker
And sometimes you might look into their pipeline and they have a couple more drugs in their pipeline that they're hoping to launch. And then there's the in between the small companies, the large companies, but I haven't worked with a whole lot of those. So. I look at it that way either pre launch.
00:05:15
Speaker
uh, mid-size with, with some somewhat of a mature, uh, maturing pipeline and then the large, uh, pharma companies. Gotcha. And then beyond that though, how do you kind of academic, you know, research institutions coexist with those players? Um, I think they, they one come into play during the development phase, drug development phase. Um,
00:05:45
Speaker
I think there's a lot of sort of, they work together during that phase for maybe research purposes in the clinical development phase. And then I think post development, we will see sometimes in the data where you are, you farming companies are
00:06:09
Speaker
targeting these research institutions because you might have the right patient population that is treated at those areas. So for example, you could have a research institution that's focused on a specific type of cancer, and this pharma company either worked with them during clinical phase, during various clinical phases or post, and they're targeting them as a potential customer for their drug.
00:06:37
Speaker
Gotcha. I'd imagine funding would come
Research and Development Influence
00:06:40
Speaker
into play. I know some research projects at least where I work are industry funded. So I guess that relationship can kind of be on the dollar side as well. Yeah, and it could be pre-commercial phase, right? So they worked with them during phase one, two, three, or post. So sometimes some researcher might be, or at the same time who's a physician, might be
00:07:08
Speaker
using that drug off label and they're seeing some good results and through that they can initiate some investigative studies which could lead to more indications for that drug. So you'll find pharma companies are very interested in that as well and will support those investigators or those physicians during that process. Yeah, I guess that's pretty relevant now with the discussions of hydroxychloroquine. Correct.
00:07:34
Speaker
We'll get back to COVID maybe a little bit, but you said phase one, two,
Drug Development Phases
00:07:39
Speaker
and three. Can you talk about kind of like the process of developing those drugs and sort of the stages of trials that companies need to go to to get them to market? Yeah.
00:07:52
Speaker
It partly, so at the end of the day, the things that they focus on is safety and efficacy, right? So safety is they're doing the toxicology studies and the efficacy is how any medical benefit that you're getting from using that drug. So typically in the first phase, they're more focused on safety. In phase two, you'll be having a smaller population that you
00:08:20
Speaker
you look at the efficacy and then phase three, you have a much larger population that you look at the efficacy. And then you put that all together, take it to the FDA, hopefully get approval. You were also talking about companies like Pfizer or whatever trying to develop their portfolios.
00:08:42
Speaker
I have a specific story of mine just recently that occurred in work. We were talking about how drugs are developed for certain conditions, right? And so I work in a setting where
00:08:57
Speaker
We're doing radiology studies for orthopedic conditions. And, you know, osteoarthritis is kind of the big player. And unfortunately, there's not a lot of pharmacological interventions because someone was saying it's, you know, quote, unquote, not really a sexy disease, right? Nobody, while it impairs function and ultimately, you know, can lead to, you know, mortality.
00:09:23
Speaker
that the disease progresses, it's not sort of this, you know, heavy hitter like cancer or other conditions that are really, you know, really have kind of like the wow factor of drugs can bring life saving interventions. So to get back to the original question of, you know, how do companies develop their portfolios of drugs and how much does this sort of wow factor play into them choosing what drugs they choose to develop? Yeah, I think
00:09:53
Speaker
In my opinion, the incentives are aligned based off of how they can maximize their profit. Rarely would you go through the trouble of developing a drug if you're not going to make a profit.
Market and Pricing Strategies
00:10:11
Speaker
And long term, it's not only that one drug, but you want to have a pipeline. So sometimes they might be looking at either a platform that they can use to have a couple of different indications or something of the sort. And so in that case, I think when they're doing the initial market research, that's the thing they really want to understand. They're also looking at reimbursement rates. Because at the end of the day, the thing that's interesting about pharma is, or pharma in general is,
00:10:41
Speaker
user of the product isn't the pair of the product, right? So you might have a great drug, but you also have to focus on the reimbursements or really have to be interested in how the different pairs are going to play. And Keyplayer actually is the government. So Medicare, Medicaid, how that how that covers that drug will typically also influence how all the other
00:11:05
Speaker
commercial payers do cover. So that's another thing that you focus on just beyond, oh, there's a large enough patient population, but how we'll be covered and what kind of reimbursement you would get really drives whether or not you want to proceed with drug development. In terms of current events, right, with COVID-19,
00:11:30
Speaker
Have you seen just a massive shift of resources towards that development within a company's drug portfolios? Just because that's where, I guess like you're saying, there'd be opportunity for reimbursement and it's really just a hot topic. Not particularly. I would say what we've seen is some clients are interested in seeing how
00:11:59
Speaker
the landscape as it is right now and the environment is impacting their sales and impacting their forecast over the next couple quarters, right? Because people aren't really going to hospitals anymore because it's not safe, but people aren't traveling as much and how that's going to affect their sales.
Pharma Communication and Prescribing
00:12:16
Speaker
But beyond that, I think former companies who are focused on a certain indication or
00:12:23
Speaker
a certain group of therapies, I think they're just going about their business the same. And I'm working with a couple clients right now and I don't, beyond trying to get a sense of how that impacts your bottom line over the next couple quarters, I don't think they're too interested in it. In terms of, you know, you get these drugs to market, right? And you want to use them in a clinical setting. So can you discuss the
00:12:52
Speaker
the communication and information channels that exist between pharmaceutical clients and clinicians. Since there's so many drugs on the market, what things are put in place so that clinicians can use the right drug at the right time? So there's a couple of drivers. I guess I could speak to it from a pharma company's perspective. At the end of the day, if I have a drug in the market, I want
00:13:22
Speaker
the doctor to prescribe my drug first, right? And so, partly from initial market research and results of the different clinical trials and the approval that you get from FDA.
00:13:39
Speaker
It sort of defines how I can market the drug, right? And typically you can think about it, either you're differentiating yourself in terms of safety or efficacy, or if you're what they call a me to drug where you don't really have good safety or efficacy data that is significantly better than the competitors. And so you're competing on price.
00:14:04
Speaker
In that case, you're trying to offer better deals, but still trying to make a profit, right? So with that, when it comes to how you communicate with physicians and how you influence prescribing habits, we, pharma companies will have a couple of different field teams. So they'll have a medical field team and they'll have a commercial field team.
00:14:29
Speaker
They also have a reimbursement field team and a clinical field team, but I'll just focus on the first two. So the medical field team will typically have discussions with physicians more on, less on the promotional side, so they don't really talk about drugs, but they'll talk more about the mechanism.
00:14:47
Speaker
And they're really trying to develop these key opinion leaders and people who were interested in their drug more and trying to drive that sort of interest in writing journals or papers or doing more research around their drug. Because in some ways, that's still good marketing. And then at the same time, you'll have your commercial field teams or your traditional sales reps who are actually going to
Healthcare Networks and Formularies
00:15:11
Speaker
the doctor's office and they have some pre-approved documentation and pre-approved literature that they are allowed to share and they can have discussions around that. They might also influence prescribing habits through sampling, giving samples of their drugs. So it just really depends, but mostly you'll see either the medical or the sales teams going out.
00:15:39
Speaker
I guess tangent of that, right? Marketing is also done to the consumer. You know, there's plenty of ads on television and other media for drugs. And is that, you know, are most of the resources put towards marketing to clinicians? Because I guess that seems probably a better target, but I guess. Yeah, it's interesting. So I just wanted to clarify, I know you're talking about the ads that you see on TV. What's interesting, my understanding of it, it's not considered an ad.
00:16:08
Speaker
as much as disease state awareness. And it's just a fancy way of saying, we're not asking you to buy as much as, that's why at the end of the day, they say, talk to your physician about this, right? Versus your traditional ad would just be, oh, hey, we have a product and it costs this much, right? So yeah, because they're not exactly allowed to advertise, but they are allowed to create awareness around a drug or around a disease.
00:16:38
Speaker
But on the physician side, what's really interesting is depending on what type of physician you're seeing, right, whether they're in a group practice, whether they're part of an integrated delivery network, so if you think about a Kaiser Permanente or something like that,
00:16:59
Speaker
what they how they prescribe is defined by this document called a formulary and typically what it says and when you fill out your
00:17:11
Speaker
insurance forms every year, you get these explanation of benefits. And basically what it outlines is if you are going through a certain therapy, what's the first line drug that you get? What's the second line drug? What's the third line drug? And what I'm trying to get at is it's almost predefined. And so although the commercial reps knocking on physicians doors does in some ways influence, what really matters is where your drug is positioned in that formulary.
00:17:41
Speaker
And that's only, but you're saying that's only relevant really for large, larger healthcare systems where they kind of have this, I guess, standard of care. So, yeah. Yes, but also on the insurance side, all payers have a formulary as well. So whether you have Aetno or CVS or whoever is your insurance, isn't you sure?
00:18:03
Speaker
they have a formulary and very similarly, it does outline what's covered and what's not covered and how much it's covered, right? So once again, your doctor or the admin would have to figure that out and look through and
00:18:18
Speaker
Because at the end of the day, your physician just wants to give you the best quality care. But at the same time, they want to minimize cost. So they're also going to be very focused on the formulary. So you'll find that for a pharma company, they have teams that are dedicated towards these large networks or these IDNs.
00:18:39
Speaker
or these large healthcare systems, as well as all these insurers, just to focus on trying to make sure their drugs are well positioned in the formulary. In some ways though, does that seem like an impediment to sort of, you know, a custom care plan that you're sort of going up this ladder of different options based on what insurance companies have worked out? Is that something that kind of, there's been some kickback from clinicians?
00:19:04
Speaker
Not really. I think partly it's just the way the system is designed, right? And for you to get preferential positioning on it, you still have to show that you provide a better benefit than the competitors, right? So in some ways, I think the system, the way design does work, I do agree that it is kind of convoluted in a sense.
Factors in Drug Pricing
00:19:33
Speaker
I wanted to actually touch on the broader discussion of big pharma and the criticism it gets in the political arena. Obviously, there are a lot of politicians who criticize the pharmaceutical industry for
00:19:57
Speaker
especially compared to other countries that US red prices are higher. Could you kind of discuss on sort of both sides of the coin there, why they might be right and why that? Yeah, I mean, this is something that it's always a funny discussion every now and then, you know, I'll be at a dinner somewhere and I'll say I work in the pharmaceutical industry and you know, someone will obviously bring that up. You know, I do agree that
00:20:28
Speaker
drugs are more expensive. I mean, people have done research and, you know, they compare with other countries and yes, they are right. But I think there's a lot of things that feed into it and it's not as simple as just asking a pharma company to charge less, right? Yeah, so I was doing some digging around and a couple of things that came up that were kind of interesting is, for example, if you look at the average med student,
00:20:56
Speaker
For you to get a medical degree and practice, the cost in the US is significantly higher than the cost in a lot of other countries, right? When you look at the US being a very litigious society as well, that means physicians have to ensure themselves at a much higher rate than other countries.
00:21:23
Speaker
I think also in a lot of ways, if you look at the US industry, a lot of new drugs and cutting-edge science, it's really coming out of the US as well. So you could also think that the US is in some ways subsidizing a lot of technology around the world.
00:21:43
Speaker
So there's just a lot of different factors I think that play into why it costs so much. But then there's also a lot of admin as well, right? In some of these single-payer systems where you don't have to navigate five different pairs and try to figure out you have to hire much higher admin costs for you to
00:22:04
Speaker
to get reimbursed for a certain service that you gave, I think that also prices into the overall cost. And that's why I think it's a lot harder for them to fix it than just asking pharma companies to lower their prices. Right. Well, I mean, we also discussed that arguably the biggest factor in them developing their portfolios is profit, right? Is there going to be opportunity for reimbursement?
00:22:34
Speaker
Is that problematic at all that we kind of want to view healthcare as sort of this non-profit entity, but then the pharmaceutical industry is kind of, you know, is kind of basing a lot of its operations on that profit? I think that's true. I mean, it has to be a sustainable business for it to work, right? Right. It's just, I guess the question is how much profit is enough profit, right?
00:23:04
Speaker
And you know, that argument's always interesting because if I was a pharma executive, I'd also be thinking about my pipeline long term, especially if you're a publicly traded firm and you want to make more profit so you can reinvest it into the business so you can have more drugs coming out of your pipeline, right, and get an approval. But I think, yeah, the incentives do align in such a way that
00:23:35
Speaker
they have to price it a little higher than they should. But I think at the same time, it's the government's job to sort of regulate that, right? And I think that's right that they do bring that up. And I'm glad that they're focused on trying to regulate it. So I think every player is just playing their role. Right.
00:23:58
Speaker
Can you, well, I guess tangent to that, can you kind of just talk about the relationship? We talked about the channel between the pharmaceutical industry and clinicians. Can you talk about just sort of the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance companies?
00:24:16
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's interesting because the pharma company makes a drug, it's a manufacturer, markets to both the insurer and the physician. Marketing to the physician so that the physician can prescribe, but then marketing to the payer so that the payer can
00:24:38
Speaker
reverse, right? So they have a pretty strong relationship in that sense. And pharma companies really do focus on developing those relationships so that they can at least make sure they get preferential formulary placement. I guess on the flip side of the coin, can you just talk about
00:24:59
Speaker
you know, we sort of touched on, I guess, the flack of the pharmaceutical industry gets, but being a part of this, you know, greater, greater, you know, part of industry. Can you explain how it's the role, like how you feel about the role of being in the healing part of that, you know, that pharmaceutical interventions, you know, have really played a big role in healing in our,
00:25:28
Speaker
Yeah, I do agree. And that's usually my basic argument, the product we do provide. I'd be hard pressed to find some other industry that provides a product that's better than ours, right?
Challenges with New Therapies
00:25:40
Speaker
And going just quickly aside tangent, when it comes to drug pricing, I think it's only going to get more interesting, right? If you look at his new cell and gene therapies, I think Novartis has a drug that
00:25:56
Speaker
I think the sticker price was $2 million for a single therapy, but it's actually a cure, right? And so it's rare. There's very few drugs that are cures. And so if you really think about it, how do you price a cure? And the way insurance is set up right now, where you renew your insurance every year,
00:26:20
Speaker
how do you make sure that that is covered, right? And what's interesting is so far, the drugs that the indications that they've gotten, it's fairly small population. So it's like really orphan drugs with really low prevalence within the US. But, you know, if they if a gene therapy comes out for
00:26:41
Speaker
maybe one of these blood cancers or something on that sort. And these companies that are working towards that, that's really going to change how it's going to have to change how payers work. It's going to have to change how people view what is expensive anymore, because we're now talking a million dollar drugs, right? But they're all secured at the same time. So I'm interested to see what's going to happen as that progresses.
00:27:05
Speaker
But specifically you though, right? Like, do you feel in your work as extolled in the pharmaceutical industry, like how do you feel that you're playing like a greater role in like the healing of people? I think, so let's step back. I started off as a chemist, right? And then I felt that I was just doing cool science, right? But I wanted to swim up a little.
00:27:33
Speaker
and really get closer to the patient, but I wasn't really thinking of going down the physician route. So then I sort of got into this consultant role, which has been pretty good and it's very eye opening, but it's also very far removed from care, right? At the end of the day, I'm looking at patients as prescriptions or units sold, right? So I never really get to feel that I'm creating
00:27:56
Speaker
I'm not close enough to the value that we're overall creating, right? But as I think about what my career, I would like my career to be and what trajectory I'm looking at, I'm thinking of getting closer to that. And I think that would bring a lot more joy to me. So right now, the answer is I feel I'm a little too far removed from it than I would like to be.
00:28:19
Speaker
Interesting. So how are you kind of pivoting? What role are you getting to be a little less removed? So I still like the data aspect. So I've been looking at it from a sort of function and scale slash scope. So from a function like what am I going to be doing within the industry? And I really like
00:28:47
Speaker
I tend to really like the strategy piece. So I want to do something that's around that when it comes to scope.
00:28:57
Speaker
I don't want to really focus on just one indication or really one company with a couple of therapies. I'd love to work with multiple companies that would almost lean towards consulting. But at the same time, if I got into maybe a venture capital in the biotech space, I think that would be pretty exciting because I could work with a lot of different clients. I'd be much closer to the strategy. I'd be working for the early
00:29:23
Speaker
early phase companies in that sense too. And I think they're much closer to their patients and they really understand that well. So I think I would be pretty happy if I make it to that spot. So that sort of lead me to like a larger question, right? Of the idea of pharmacy, right? We're kind of trying to impose a scientific model on the human body and develop solutions in that context.
00:29:54
Speaker
So is there sort of space for this human or spiritual side in that, or is that just inherently sort of, is pharmacy kind of inherently devoid of that human side of medicine and healing? But human side, you elaborate just briefly. Sure, yeah. I guess my point is that
00:30:20
Speaker
Right pharmacy, we're developing scientific solutions to, to either, you know, cure or mitigate suffering caused by conditions. Um, and in that kind of very rigorous scientific framework, is it, does it leave little space for sort of, um, I dunno what other way to put it. This is a human or spiritual sense of, of, that is also a big part of, of, of healthcare and healing.
00:30:46
Speaker
See, um, I think, you know, and I've spent about a year or two years in Asia. In the last couple years right and it's been pretty exciting and it's a different approach to it right.
00:31:02
Speaker
maybe cupping or acupuncture, like a lot more Eastern style medicine. I think there's room for both, right? And I think just beyond even pharma itself and us creating drugs,
00:31:18
Speaker
for cures or to mitigate symptoms. Also, you're seeing exercise come into play. You're seeing nutrition come into play alongside what you described as well. So I think a more holistic approach to health care and wellness, which is counter to the way we currently approach health care. I wait to get sick and then go to the doctor.
00:31:44
Speaker
I think that's gonna be, that's really the way that we should be moving. In some senses, maybe in smaller groupings or subcultures, some people are very focused on that as well. But yeah, I do think there is space for that, but there's also space for nutrition, there's also space for exercise and health and wellness. Yeah, I definitely, I hope we had more in that direction.
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, even on the reimbursement side in insurance companies, I think they're starting to embrace sort of this more preventative approach in terms of, in the long run, that'll be cost saving for them anyway.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they're definitely doing that. And I think you're seeing that, especially in the mental health space, right? That was something that it's a lot harder to... I think at the end of the day, what really matters is, can you prove it on paper with some numbers, right? And I think we've had enough time to do some research and people are starting to really buy into these ideas, but initially it was kind of a hard sell, right? So you're right. I think we're moving there maybe slower than we need to, but yeah.
00:32:56
Speaker
The last thing I wanted to touch on that I just find pretty fascinating, I guess a big part of the pharmaceutical industry is the placebo effect, right? Is that kind of considered a pharmaceutical company's worst nightmare, that your placebo rates are at 30 or 35%, and then your drug is at like 37%.
00:33:19
Speaker
you know, maybe distinguishable from placebo, maybe not. Can you just talk about the role that plays in the industry as a whole in terms of validating drugs?
The Placebo Effect in Medicine
00:33:29
Speaker
Oh, like randomized control testing. Yeah, I mean, you're right. Because if you can't show significant clinical benefit, you are either likely not to get approval to market that drug, or even if you do, the data doesn't really allow you to position yourself well within the market. So all of a sudden, you can't really differentiate yourself.
00:33:58
Speaker
And now you're going on price and that's not a great place to be. But yeah, the placebo effect is it's real. I mean, I think it's not necessarily the placebo discussion, but if you look at.
00:34:14
Speaker
COVID situation. And I think it's remdesivir. I don't know how to pronounce it. Well, but I think it's remdesivir. I'm pretty sure that's the most mispronounced word in the US in 2020. Yeah, their, their results were, I think they were reducing hospitalization time by four days, right? Which in some senses is
00:34:42
Speaker
It's great, right, for a throughput perspective, right? If you're seeing X number of patients and you can get them out faster, you can treat more. So, I think that's sort of the angle they're going to, in my opinion, but generally,
00:34:54
Speaker
It wasn't very significant, right? It's not a cure. If they had like five days or something, it would be pretty great, right? So even for pharma companies, sometimes the results that come out aren't that great, right? And even if they're not, you do just try to figure out how you're still benefiting the system. Because at the end of the day, you have to figure out how to market your drug. Because you did spend a lot of money during your drug development and clinical drug age.
00:35:24
Speaker
So I think that's probably the play the angle they're going to go with and maybe a couple others. But yeah, they always find they have to find a way to justify the costs that they get market. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think another argument I've heard regarding sort of the placebo effect is is that
00:35:47
Speaker
you know, if you give someone a placebo and you tell them it's a placebo and it works, is that sort of medicine, right? And yeah, you're right. I think it is, right? If you sort of have a relief from whatever symptoms or sort of condition you're experiencing, that is like medicine, even though there might not be sort of a
00:36:11
Speaker
you know, rigorous clinical trial to prove it. Um, and it's not, you know, it's not gonna harm you or hurt or really help you scientifically anyway. Um, I guess that's, I think it's still kind of medicine, but it's, it's definitely, you know, a little spicy for sure. It's fascinating. I think I remember once reading about, um,
00:36:36
Speaker
placebo surgeries, right, where they go in and, you know, but the thing about it is, and I'm still sort of developing my thoughts around this, but we're each human beings very different, right? And that's why I like genetics is such a key play. And since you're seeing all of this, like,
00:36:56
Speaker
push or trend towards precision medicine, really understanding the genetic code. But when you think about how clinical trials are run, it's a random set of people that's designed to say, if I can show clinical benefit within the sample population, then it should work in general.
00:37:21
Speaker
but we're very different. Each person's very different, right? So even a drug that's approved might not work. So in some ways, like if you think about the placebo as well, like maybe he or she was going to get cured anyway, right? It's just their body was working through it, right? So what I'm trying to get at is I don't think
00:37:43
Speaker
Pharma is as accurate as it wants to be. It's statistically acceptable, but it's not a very precise. It's not 100% precise yet. We're not in that precision phase. P values less than 0.05, right? Yes. Yeah. But I'm very curious about like, I don't know. I mean, I'm hopeful with precision medicine someday that that could be, I think we're a long way to go there, but yeah. All right. Well,
00:38:13
Speaker
Let's finish up with a lightning round, a series of fast-paced questions that tell us more about you. So first, I actually have a pop quiz. Wait, so before this, so you work for, you said it's high point solutions, but it's an IQ. Could you explain that? Like the name there? Yeah. So I was hired at High Point Solutions, which is a
00:38:37
Speaker
consulting firm in 2017 and they got acquired by some company, uh, IMS, which then merged with another company, uh, Quintiles and they're now, they became Quintiles IMS and now they're IQVIA. So now I work for IQVIA and, um, IQVIA is a pretty big data company. Uh,
00:39:00
Speaker
they have a lot of market data for the US and across the world. And then that merger with Quintile is what they brought was a CRO, Clinical Research Organization. So basically, if you're a pharma company, you want to run a clinical trial, they have the machinery to do it for you. So then the two of them came together and they're now, we're now a 50,000 person, just behemoth company.
00:39:26
Speaker
Gotcha. Well, my question was related to the name High Point Solutions. So the pop quiz was what college football stadium was named High Point Solutions Stadium from 2011 to 2019? Is that Rutgers? That's right. Nice. But they're not related though, but yeah. Oh, so that's not related to your High Point Solutions. I remember asking. Yeah, I remember asking, but yeah, Rutgers. This is computer. It is. It is.
00:39:56
Speaker
Um, but are you a sports fan at all? I am a huge, uh, Eagles fan. Oh yeah.
Closing and Personal Interests
00:40:03
Speaker
Philadelphia Eagles. Eagles all the way. Go birds Philly. Uh, well, I follow Michigan football, um, the Michigan basketball, but also the Eagles a little bit. My family's from Philly. My brother's a bigger Eagles fan. Um,
00:40:20
Speaker
You've done internships in Allegan, Michigan and Wycliffe, Ohio, is that right? Yes, that is correct. So I take it you know a thing or two about the Midwest. What's your biggest takeaway about living in the boonies? Oh, you know, so I, as a foreign national, right, my first experience of the US was actually in the boonies, right, which when I think about it from like
00:40:48
Speaker
getting introduced to American culture was amazing. It's very family oriented. It's very friendly. Everyone said hi to you. And then once I moved into the big city, I moved to DC and it's just very different, right? I had this sort of like American Kuchie vibe moving into the big city. So it was kind of cool, but I loved it. I loved it a lot. What's a good piece of advice you've received
00:41:20
Speaker
So when I was thinking about school and really people are going back to school for an MBA and people are asking me about why you want to do it and what your career goals should be, someone told me think about it from a
00:41:38
Speaker
function, industry, and location, right? If you can kind of figure those three out, it's pretty great. So what function? So what sort of industry? What industry do you want to work in? So in my case, it was still a farmer, and that was pretty good. What function or role do you want to do in that area? And as I said, being in the analytics space, I think that's okay. But as I'm moving more, I would love to get into sort of venture cap maybe.
00:42:01
Speaker
And then in terms of location, that's very important from a family perspective, both your extended family as well as the family that you're trying to have with your partner as you grow up, right? So, and thinking about your kids as well. So I would say definitely as you think about your career, function, industry, and location.
00:42:23
Speaker
I'll definitely think about that all the more. That's good advice. All right, last thing. So what is the thing you like the most? And what is the thing you dislike the most about the pharmaceutical industry? I think the like part is pretty easy. I think we create a great product. And I think we
00:42:48
Speaker
Just the benefit that we provide is great. But what I dislike is...
00:42:55
Speaker
The way the incentives are set up, especially from a reimbursement perspective and just overall cost, right? And I know there's also like discussions on how delivery differs between the US and other places, but just from a cost perspective, I think it's fairly prohibitive and it would be great if we could try to figure that out. I'm kind of leaning towards the,
00:43:22
Speaker
healthcare should be a right, but I know it's a little bit of a touchy subject usually because someone's got to pay for it somehow, right? But it would be great if healthcare was a right. So that's one thing I do dislike about the way the industry is set up. Certainly more discussion on all those topics coming up. No, Masika, thanks for joining the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me.
00:43:58
Speaker
Thanks for listening to The Wound Dresser. Until next time, I'm your host John Neery. Be well.