In This Issue 10 Ways To Get The Most Out Of Your Spring Meeting President's Message: Foundation Focus LES Education Sector Spotlight: Chemicals, Energy & Materials Sector Nine Tips for Entrepreneurs: How Entrepreneurs Can Partner with General Mills Local Chapters Enthusiastic Response To Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) Program |
President's Message
In my acceptance speech at the LES Annual Meeting in Vancouver, I remarked, "One of the greatest strengths of our organization is its ability to encourage and leverage the interactions of multiple disciplines." What I was referring to then, and would like to explore further, here is the idea of "interdependence." Being mutually dependent or reliant on one another is not a new concept to the forward-thinking professionals who make up our LES membership. What I share with you here comes from experience and thoughts gained at Schering-Plough. That experience provided me with awareness that interdependence can come on a global level, an industry level and a personal level. Global Interdependence Twenty years ago, I worked with Moussa Youdim from Haifi, Israel on research advancing the knowledge of the dopamine receptor. Moussa focused on the early chemistry of developing the new drug, Azilect, which delays the progression of the symptoms of Parkinson's disease. Our relationship was interdependent and our goal was getting the drug to clinical trials. Many other funding mechanisms and many other clinical researchers around the globe were necessary to bring their individual expertise in getting the drug approved. As I am sure you have come to realize, LES and LES International are critically important to our licensing initiatives worldwide. License agreements that document the rights of partners to collaborate speed up the development process and incentivize the members of global teams between companies. That is why our Spring Meeting in Chicago is significant. The upcoming meeting is a good example of how we can combine forces to create forums. Together we can form strong political lobbies to insure patent protection for inventors. Without strong patent protection there will not be innovation. Inventors must be incentivized to create new intellectual property (IP). Strong IP protection in the U.S. will be duplicated in Europe and Japan. Those reforms will impact China and India, where there is increasing appreciation for IP rights and where there is beginning knowledge that producing new chemical entities and protecting them will lead to real advances. Pharma & Biotech Interdependence We see many Health Care and High Technology companies combining forces to come up with new devices. The stent that has a clot-busting drug built in is one good example of a device in combination with a drug that can do many things. Another option in acquiring products or technology that we hear about often in today's market is acquisitions. These business alliances require a great deal of interdependence in order to maximize the synergy between two companies. For example, you might have two companies with $1 billion in sales and $500 million each in expenses. By merging, and getting the interdependence of the combined entities, a company can become more profitable. For example expenses of the combined company may drop to only $750 million in expenses. The combined sales of the two companies stays the same at $2 billion, but the expenses have now been reduced by $250 million. That increases the profitability of the new company. LES Member Interdependence Interdependence allows us to turn to each other for advice on how to structure the terms of an agreement. Interdependence creates an environment where we reach out to each other. To further enhance this benefit, Trustee Pamela Demain has led a group, conceptualized and developed a business system called Power Networking. This is a powerful way to build long term relationships with other business development and licensing executives. It goes beyond what many systems offer in that it is not just about the molecule for sale that day, but it is about connecting with a person who will remain a lifelong business associate. A sign of good leadership and team players is seen in their ability to act interdependently. The LES Board relies on their diverse talents and knowledge to face the challenges ahead. Current activities by the LES Board to interact with the LES International Board are also important as members turn to each other as an international source of knowledge. We welcome those international connections especially at the LES Spring Meeting and LESI Annual Conference in Chicago where Chikao Fukuda, LES International President, will open the Networking Luncheon on Wednesday, May 7. Furthermore, I'd like to announce that we will have Debbie Brooks, co-founder of the Michael J. Fox Foundation, to give us her perspective on the importance of Intellectual Property for advancing their work. It will be time to rely on each other, to experience interdependence. And, as the mantra goes, "Love thy neighbor." |
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Executives Society (U.S.A. and Canada), Inc. |
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