How Bristol Myers Squibb Re-Designed their Procurement Operating Model for R&D Success

Brian Whitlock, Vice President of Global R&D Procurement at Bristol Myers Squibb shares his experience in building a high-performance operating model to support the objectives of biopharmaceutical research.

In the latest episode of the PharmaSource podcast Brian explains how the procurement operating model had to change following 2019, when BMS announced the acquisition of Celgene.

“The acquisition was a sea change for how we think about procurement, and how to support a much larger critical R&D business unit with 9,000 scientists worldwide.” he says.

Procurement had to align with the priorities for the wider Bristol Myers Squibb business: building a world class pipeline, improving productivity and reducing development cycle times while also delivering high quality medicines to our patients.

In order for procurement to support this, Brian explains that “There has been a lot of process re-engineering, both internally and with our partners, tapping capabilities that exist within the supplier market that perhaps we have not made a direct investment in.”

Brian worked with leaders within R&D function to design an operating model that “not only focuses on driving the high volume, high risk and high visibility opportunities but also have individuals with unique skill sets that can drive an innovation portfolio.” 

“One of the things I absolutely love about R&D is that we have very creative scientists that come up with challenging opportunities. Every day is different. Every challenge is a little bit unique. It’s that variation, and the complexity of these challenges that really motivate us day to day.”

“As science evolves, our procurement organisation has had to evolve and adapt to be able to enable these these new capabilities. We’ve changed the operating model to focus on urgency.”

Strategic procurement helps navigate challenging times

Brian believes that Procurement will be key in in helping the business  identify partners and solutions that deliver better outcomes. 

“It is a competitive differentiator for us” says Brian. “The number one priority is keeping close with our stakeholders and keeping close with our supply base.”

“One of the core values procurement can bring to any business unit is to look around the corners, anticipate and plan for things that have not happened yet.  That is a strategic and proactive sourcing organisation versus one that is just taking orders”. 

“Procurement now plays a very important role, sitting at the table with our stakeholders to bring new capabilities to our enterprise.”

Cultivate an innovation mindset to increase speed to market

“Something that I have done my entire career is ask questions. Working with 9,000 scientists and thousands of suppliers at any given period of time. I would be hard pressed not to learn something new every day.”

If there’s one quality that procurement needs to support R&D function, Brian says it’s the need to focus on innovation, with an open-minded mindset. 

“You have to have that when you’re working with R&D. Innovation is their core principle, so if the procurement function is not open to doing new things you marginalise your contribution to the organisation.”

“The approach that BMS has taken is very focused on speed, getting as many medicines to as many patients as fast as we can.” says Brian.

Deep accountability for your category

“Procurement are the experts in the external marketplace.” says Brian. “ Our role is to enable our business through optimised third party solutions.”

Brian explains that accountability is key. “It’s about owning your space. Understand what our stakeholders need, how the external market its organised, what the external forces that are either headwinds or tailwinds to the broader enterprise.”

Procurement should act as “thought partners”, able to work with the business to brainstorm and ultimately implementing solutions that extend beyond the conventional scope of traditional procurement.

Innovation comes from smaller transactions

It is not uncommon within the procurement practice that lower dollar value transactions do not get the attention they need, says Brian.

“However, we’ve come to recognise and appreciate that many times these bespoke or niche opportunities are really the future of the R&D organisation, they bring a critical differentiating capability.” 

One team, serving Patients

Brian highlights that the clear mission of  Bristol Myers Squibb is that “patients are the focus of  everything that we do. “

“I say that with conviction: everything rallies around serving patients. Either meeting their need today today, or solving complex disease challenges to serve patients in the future.” 

This patient-first mindset means that colleagues shouldn’t think in discrete categorical buckets or by job title, but to serve the end customer.  “It helps create a ‘one team’ mentality. We’re all in this together. “

Brian shares his own heart-breaking story about his mother’s cancer motivates him.

“It’s my hope that we can continue to lessen the number of families that have to go through these very difficult healthcare crises.”

BMS Prime: Enabling self service

Brian explains that self-service is important because the size of the procurement team is relatively small compared to the R&D organisation. Self-service means that his team can focus resources on more complex, higher risk propositions for the organisation. 

“We enable our scientists to get what they want from existing, vetted suppliers is areas such as lab consumables, where BMS make hundreds of thousands of transactions every year.”  

“We don’t have the resources to directly manage each transaction so we enable inventory centres. We have strategic partnerships with the likes of Thermo Fisher Scientific, and many others who can help us manage and distribute a complex, complex supply chain.”

“Everything has already been set up by procurement in partnership with finance and it in R&D. Now if our scientists need a material for their experiment, they don’t have to come to procurement, they can go into an intranet site, they can buy what they need to buy. “

“Some folks call it a BMS Prime, like Amazon Prime. You order what you need to order and it shows up on your lab bench a couple of days later. “

The growing importance of Computer Aided Research

“Computer aided research is still very much an evolving landscape and requires a lot of cross functional collaboration within the organisation.” says Brian.

‘In silico’ (computer simulated) research “is allowing us to arm our scientist with more data and higher compute functionality, so that they can interrogate that data with greater speed and better outcomes. It allows us to have molecules coming out of research that have a higher probability of success in the clinic, and ultimately, with regulatory agencies. “

“When you have a more efficient research pipeline, the entire portfolio and patients benefit from that.”

How important is having a scientific background?

Brian explains that for him personally, a background in science has been beneficial to leading procurement for R&D services.

“Having been a scientist in a working laboratory, I can appreciate the challenges and the needs of our scientific teams. It helps create more efficient and productive conversations with our scientific staff when you’ve walked maybe not a whole mile, but at least a few feet in their shoes. “

However, Brian welcomes more diverse perspectives from different academic backgrounds.

“I used to think that science background was more important because it worked for me. But as I’ve matured as a procurement professional and been exposed to individuals that do not have a scientific background who are, quite frankly, just as successful, just as impactful as those that do – that has really changed my perspective.  “

“The  inclusion of diverse perspectives as it has a proven track record of better outcomes and greater value to an organisation versus only hiring scientists.” says Brian. “I’m really glad that’s happened. I think I’m a better leader because of it.”