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Is Covid over? At HTLS, Novartis CEO Vas Narasimhan says ‘let society move forward’
HT Leadership Summit Day 4: On the impact of Covid-19, Vss Narasimhan said “the world is more comfortable with mRNA vaccines. You need to invest in science for a long time to come up with such breakthroughs”.
The people have to remain alert to the possibility of the extreme happening like Covid-19 pandemic but also, let society move forward and let society function normally, said Vasant Narasimhan, CEO of Novartis, on Day 4 of the 20th edition of the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit on Friday.
“Tough question. These viruses tend to move to endemicity where they adapt to the human body and the human body adapts to the virus… but the human immunity system is improving. We have to be extremely alert to the possibility of the extreme happening but also let society forward, and let society function normally," Narasimhan said when asked if Covid-19 is over.
Since becoming CEO of Novartis in 2018, Narasimhan has led a strategic and cultural transformation to build a focused medicines company powered by technology leadership in R&D, data science, world-class commercialisation and global access to medicine. He leads a company of more than 108,000 associates that does business in approximately 155 countries and that reached 766 million patients with its medicines in 2021.
On the impact of Covid-19, Narasimhan said “new technologies have the opportunity to reshape how medicine impacts Asians… The world is more comfortable with mRNA vaccines. You need to invest in science for a long time to come up with such breakthroughs”.
“It's very difficult to maintain investments in such kind of events like swine flu and pandemic. We have many companies thathave come up after the Covid-19 breakthrough… But probably more needs to be done,” he said.
'India is the heart of Novartis'
Narasimhan also said technology has advanced, and R&D has evolved. "Novartis has baby food products, and different devices. Novartis invested in novel medicines… India is the heart of Novartis. Whatever to do is through Hyderabad. This will remain critical to success. The core development activities happen in Hyderabad. we run 400-500 clinical trials and data of all these medicines are analysed in Hyderabad. All data management happens in Hyderabad. All our AI is done in Hyderabad," said Narasimhan.
Vaccine development timeline
The biggest learning from Covid vaccine was how fast the regulators and industries were. he said. On access to medicines, Narasimhan said the capability to diagnose early is most important.
“We end up diagnosing patients far too late, especially in middle- and low-income countries. Getting that capability to diagnose early is the most important thing we can do. Because then we can at least start the journey for these patients as we have cheap generic medicines,” he added.
Narasimhan has focused his education and career on improving human health and on his personal purpose of inspiring a healthier world. During and after his medical studies, he worked on public health issues such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in India, Africa and South America. He continues to champion access and global health priorities, including through a commitment by Novartis to expand access to innovative medicines in low- and middle-income countries by at least 200% by 2025.
Future of pharma companies
The focus should be on R&D and taking the new technologies and translating them into therapy. “So many diseases have very good therapies right now. So, if you want to succeed in the long run, if you have to take that technology and translate them into therapies in the future. So, you have to have a very strong technology capability. We also need to innovate things on the access paradise. Another thing is how to tackle growing chronic diseases with a population-based approach,” the CEO said.
