UCB: Data is the new

drug
UCB: Overview
• A global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Belgium

• Focused on developing medicines and therapies for people with severe

diseases of immune system or the central nervous system

• Revenue 2015: $3.88 billion

• 7800 employees in 40 countries

• Over 1000 research and development staff, spending 27 per cent of revenue
on research

• Jean- Christophe Teller : CEO 2015

• Herman De Prins : CIO

New Strategy
• 2015: Introduced Patient Value strategy
• “ Connecting the patient to the science,
connecting science to the solutions, and
connecting the solutions back to the
patient”
• New Strategy: UCB to strive for long
term patient value outcomes and to
integrate patient’s insights throughout
the operating model
• Growth was centered on four patient
values and NewMedicines
• Supported by Unified Practice Units,
Functional Units and Global Operations
Strategy-Continued
• Health care ecosytem was under radical changes

• Innovative Competitors made use of advanced technologies

• UCB adopted a network approach to innovation as an important pillar of its

new strategy

• Reinforced ties with university such as Harvard, Cambridge and University

of Leuven

• Parterned with companies such as Great Lakes NeuroTechnologies,MC10

Inc and IMS Health and Synthesio

• Solution Accelerator in 2016: Collaboration with Georgia Insititute of

Technology
IT Foundation
• IBM’s supercomputer Watson: 2011 : Won Television Quiz: Jeopardy

• IBM-UCB team developed a prototype system that translated massive

amounts of epilepsy patient data and scientific literature into insights that
health care providers could consult

• This experience with Watson sparked De Prins to realize that data and
analytics would revolutionize health care

• De Prins introduced a program called The Future of IT to clarify the role of

IT going forward

• Technologies such as cloud computing, 3D printing and cognitive computing

• De Prins wanted to prepare his IT oraganisation for the “new digital normal”

• 2012: De Prins decided to build an advanced analytics capability

Framework
• UCB : Great deal of data was available internally across the value chain

• Still, data was exploited only for the primary use

• Future of IT, aimed to employ advanced analytics to make the data available
for secondary uses

• Health care data from external data was exploding; data from health care
providers, public and private payers, suppliers, digital patients, and smart
devices

• UCB IT leadership realized the value of tapping into this external data

• Looked for ways to mix and match the internal and external data
Sprints: Agile & Opportunistic
Method
• UCB : Great deal of data was available internally across the value chain

• Still, data was exploited only for the primary use

• Future of IT, aimed to employ advanced analytics to make the data available
for secondary uses

• Health care data from external data was exploding; data from health care
providers, public and private payers, suppliers, digital patients, and smart
devices

• UCB IT leadership realized the value of tapping into this external data

• Looked for ways to mix and match the internal and external data
Problems with Sprints
Businesses were reluctant to implement changes in spite of value
demonstrated

Businesses in Pharma industry were demanding more rigorous proof

Sprints couldn’t inspire the trust in potential sponsors

Employees were finding it difficult to internalize the learnings

 Value Runs
• Introduction of A/B testing to show more
real proof of real impact
• For this sprints were extended to
include value runs

Process-
1. First sprints are to be used to
demonstrate potential value of a project Embed
2. A-B test to be used to prove that new
decision is better than old one
3. Lastly, insights to be embedded in the
work process