Bill Gates to Trevor Mundel: “Do you want to sell drugs for rare diseases for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?”

Steve Jobs successfully recruited John Scully to head up Apple in 1983 by making this legendary pitch to Scully:"Do you want to sell sugared water for the rest of your life? Or do you want to come with me and change the world?"Did Bill Gates make a similar pitch to lure Trevor Mundel away from Novartis to be President of Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?Mundel was not enjoying his role as Novartis' Global Head of Development in 2011 when he went over to the "light side" of philanthropy as opposed to remaining on the "dark side" of capitalistic pharma.At Novartis Mundel admits there was a "huge focus in moving towards rare diseases... [which] from a regulatory viewpoint... were much less expensive — they might be accelerated" (read "The Gates Foundation’s Trevor Mundel on Rallying Pharma to Do Good").Mundel was referring to FDA's program of accelerated approval of drugs to treat rare ("orphan") diseases (see here). Given that incentive and the high prices orphan disease drugs command, it is understandable why pharma is channeling "Willy Sutton"; i.e., going where the money is (read "New Big Pharma Economies of Scale: Less Patients Needed to Reach Blockbuster Sales")Mundel described the moment of truth when I imagine Gates made his pitch:Read more »
Source: Pharma Marketing Blog - Category: Pharma Commentators Tags: Gate Foundation Novartis orphan drugs Source Type: blogs