ASTRAZENECA: Serving Every Africa Patient Through Collaboration, Innovation and Dedication

AstraZeneca’s African cluster has been working to deliver knowledge and value to patients for almost 30 years, transforming lives and ensuring access to the most innovative medicines. Its presence covers a large territory on the continent from Angola, Nigeria, Ghana, through the likes of Ivory Coast and Cameroon, reaching Rwanda, Kenya and Ethiopia, among others.

As Country President of the African Cluster, Barbara Nel’s responsibility is all-encompassing, incorporating South Africa as well as the whole of Sub-Saharan and French-speaking Africa. Nel’s unbending determination to meet the needs of African patients is backed by deep experience as a business leader and a proven track record of developing, implementing and embedding innovative strategies.

AFRICAN AIMS

Building on expertise accrued across numerous roles globally and across all emerging markets,  now a decade into her career with AstraZeneca, Nel begins with a rundown of some of what takes place under her stewardship. “Within the African cluster our main focus is around how we, as a science-led, innovative company, bring new molecules and new indications to serve patients in Africa.

“Even just taking the last eight months, we have had 27 regulatory approvals for either new molecules that we can bring into many of our countries, or new indications for existing molecules pointing to potential new applications,” she reports.

“The disruption that Covid has created in all industries, but notably in pharmaceutical and healthcare, has made us closely examine how we adapt,” Nel goes on. “We have been in Africa for just shy of 30 years, and crucial for us is a continuation, and furthering, of that phenomenal partnership.

“We are committed to responding to this big question of access through constant innovation, challenging ourselves to serve every patient.”

The pandemic of course gave AstraZeneca and Nel great cause to innovate, Nel asserts, one solution forged being a new, streamlined, ‘low-touch’ approach to care. “In response to the big drop in new diagnoses of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, asthma and diabetes that we observed, we are creating, in partnership with BrandMed, a patient journey where there are fewer physical points of contact with the healthcare system. It is a one-stop shop for the patient offering them an integrated view, and less time spent in a hospital but a much more holistic view to the treatment they receive.”

Consistent across AstraZeneca’s primary care areas in Africa is the belief in science’s ability to change our vision of the world and how we deal with the diseases that affect us. The pandemic has only made it push harder at the limits of what is possible within the African cluster.

CRUCIAL COLLABORATION

“There’s nothing like disruption to drive innovation,” Nel states with customary pragmatism, explaining that again access and patient convenience is at the centre. “A lot of our work at present is around ecosystems, and the behavioural changes that we have observed among patients, hospitals and healthcare professionals. We want to consider how patients are accessing healthcare moving forward.

“We have also had to adapt the way in which we support healthcare professionals, quickly pivoting away from in-person seminars to online platforms and in fact connecting a bigger audience able to put forth the realities they were facing.”

Despite the obvious and expected competitive edge to the African pharmaceutical market, working together remains absolutely pivotal to both the present and future of African medicine. “At AstraZeneca we have always placed a lot of importance in collaboration in our approach,” she tells us, as with its Africa PUMUA Initiative which required partnerships with governments, healthcare professionals and societies.

“Swahili for ‘breathe’, this initiative looks to improve and redefine asthma care for both adults and paediatric patients,” Nel unpacks. “Very often we are associated purely with treatment, but actually this stage comes very late in the patient’s timeline. We are working closely with companies producing equipment to assist with the administration of our medication and focusing on strengthening local health systems and building health worker capacity.”

Under Nel’s leadership innumerable forward-thinking initiatives have been implemented, with aims spanning access to sustainable healthcare, early detection of disease, promotion of primary prevention and early detection of disease, promotion of primary prevention and young health. Common across all is this philosophy of being stronger together.

“At AstraZeneca we recognise that breakthrough science and healthcare doesn’t happen in isolation; it is the result of collaboration and partnership. Our commitment to our patients and our responsibility to work closely with partners and stakeholders who can join us along the whole patient journey is integral to our work in Africa, to create a sustainable impact and to find answers to health challenges.”

INSPIRING LEADERSHIP

Faced with the unprecedented challenge of Covid, Africa has been spurred to undertake a vaccines revolution, with the power of science and collaboration at the forefront. “What we have done with our vaccine so far in Africa has been a real success,” Nel recognises. “It demonstrates that even a big multinational like AstraZeneca is prepared to take risks and show a very high level of agility.

“The AstraZeneca vaccine through COVAX has reached over 129 countries, and in Africa 39 countries are currently benefitting from its availability. We are enormously proud of this commitment to delivering our vaccine to so many countries at no profit during the pandemic. Around the world to date, more than one billion doses of Covid-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca have been released for supply to over 170 countries, and approximately two thirds have gone to low- and lower-middle-income countries. AstraZeneca is the third biggest supplier of Covid-19 vaccine doses in the world.”

Nel herself has taken genuine inspiration from the progress and accomplishments the pandemic circumstances have engendered. “One real challenge has been living the science, the pandemic and the rollout of the vaccines all at the same time,” she divulges. “It has really inspired me from a risk-taking perspective to see some of our senior leaders show the level of nimbleness and adaptability to juggle these enormous responsibilities simultaneously.

“For me, demonstrating that leadership and fostering that innovation in a company is exactly what we have done in the African cluster,” Nel says, and it would be impossible to argue otherwise. “We want to position Covid from a business perspective as a positive thing, a big disruptor which has spurred us to say that now is the time to do the things we had stated for the future.”

Even after 28 years in the pharmaceutical sector, 10 with AstraZeneca and two as President of the African Cluster, Barbara Nel is using these remarkable situations to hone her own leadership. “The most important thing is to work with your team, because in a situation like this nobody has the answer,” she states frankly.

“As I always say, we had to develop different muscles. Now being in the midst of a third powerful third wave we have learned a lot from the first and the second, and we now know what we need to do to continue to put our people first and deliver for patients in the African cluster.”

Barbara Nel is in a crucial role as an accomplished, respected female leader, supremely supported by an organisation renowned for inclusivity. “AstraZeneca in Africa has for the first time been recognised as a top gender employer. In the African Cluster we are around 60% female, as are the majority of my senior leadership team. In a predominantly female organisation we have been able to embrace risk-taking and agility, and ensure that we function in an inclusive way.”

Asked for her final words of insight for any aspiring African, or indeed global, leaders, Nel is clear in her core principles. “Take risks, rather than waiting until everything is perfect, and then learn as you go along. You can have courage or you can have comfort, but you can’t have both.

“Believe in and love what you do. I am inspired every day, not just by the innovation that we inspire but by the difference that we make to and the impact that we have on people’s lives. That is what drives me.