Roche CEO: Future of cancer treatment, AI in Medicine and Trial Challenges
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Hi everyone, i'm nica in the CEO of the norwegian someone will fun. And today we have Thomas china's the CEO of rush wishes, one of the leading healthcare companies in the world. Rush was founded in eighty ninety six so is uh real lots of tradition have really innovated in health care, saved millions and millions of people. And we are proud that we owe two point three percent of the company worth more than six billion dollars. So a big thanks much yesterday.

Thank you very much for the.

So to when um you drive into boston, right, you have a rush on one side of the river and no varka on the other side of the river. Two of the leading for mmc companies in the world. So how come that this a little swiss down, has grown to become one of the super centres for bio pharma?

I think it's all in the history of that region. H, starting with the chemical industry and then later moving into the farmer, a part of the industry. Uh, so I I think it's all basically in the history of of the region and located in the center of europe.

Uh it's actually quite ally located. In addition, IT also has an eco system in terms of good universities um good educational system in general. And I think this really attracts a lot of people around the world, really talent people can drive innovation. Well.

we love IT to when we see this kind of hubs of different types of industries. Now um one of the things with you are uh you know the leader in in cancer and I read this book called the emperor of all Melody about the incredible progress has happened in cancer survival rates for the last safety years. Could you just breathe and take through the main milestones in the development?

Yeah so on the uh college side, I think one of the major h breakthrough was uh killed the understanding of original if you look back uh in two thousand and and three IT costs billions to sequence uh one genome and took I think uh more than ten years to sequence a single genome. Uh now you can do that within just days and the cost you hundreds uh of swiss ranks of dollars, whatever currency you are looking into.

So really understanding the genome was a real breakthrough. And with that you could understand Better the drivers uh of what's actually drives cancer, a certain uncle genes eea. And with that you can target much more precisely the root cause of cancer.

Then I think the other breaks through was uh when we found uh a way on how to use antibodies, something that naturally occurs in our body um but to take these antibodies and target them much more precisely at different diseases, including uh, cancer. And uh I think cancer in unitary apes are a great example of that where you can actually activate the own immune system to fight the cancer. And I think we'll go more in that direction as well.

A one a topic we're working on is the personal cancer succeed. So really on how you can even more enhance your own immune stem to fight off the cancer. So there are a number of steps that have been happening. And on the other hand, that I think there's a lot of innovation that can still happen and a long way to go to really um eradicate cancer.

How strong is your leadership in concert now?

Ah we've been uh one of the leading companies uh in the college, for what is the last two cade at least um first with the acquisition of china and take where we actually got a lot access to this know how on how to engineer antibodies to Better targets， different uh cancer um you know targets um and at the same time, you know we need to continue to invest research and development on college. Right now we're investing about fifty percent of a global R N D budget. So fifty percent of thirteen billion into the college space because, you know, we want to continue to drive innovation and set the next standard of care.

And how would you define your market positions in in the other, uh, areas?

So we are a leader in a health care overall uh if you look at just by revenue, rush is the second biggest a healthcare company in the world with both having farmer and diagnostics s under one roof on the diagnostic sides will clearly the market leader and in farmer, we are the leader in a number of different places. I think news science is one area where we are clearly the market leader. Hemophilia where the market leader, uh, in auto ology, we are in the process of becoming the market leader. Uh, in ecology, we are now uh, one of the top three companies in the in terms .

of uh cancer medicines. So you have um on the last you said you have twenty new products in the pipeline on which nine has been launched. So when you look at that pipeline, how excited are you compared to what you have been history?

H if you look at the last uh ten years um or fifteen years, even we've launched about two new medicines uh every year and this is quite a feat. Uh if you look at the fact that uh to develop a new medicine IT takes on average around uh thirteen years and from the beginning of development all the way to launch with the medicine, only about one out of ten makes IT. Now this is not a rough specific number.

This is just an industry uh number. So launching to every year is quite fit and and that's the rate we want to continue. And if you continue that rate, will launch twenty medicines also in, in this decade. Now in our pipeline, we have many, many more uh, potential medicines, but there is always an nutrition an and so you have to work on many things to get just two out of the out of the door at the end.

Now the big the big thing, of course, of the last couple years have been the the obesity space where you did have the opportunity to enter. Um now you have entered at a later stage just what what happened there? Why were you a bit late out of the books?

Yeah actually uh rose was also a leader in cardiac topic diseases in the past. And back in two thousand and ten, two thousand and eleven, we actually had one of these increase uh in our pipeline. And also you guy, one of our daughter companies has developed all in creating now um you know everything in life, sometimes you make right decisions, sometimes you don't make the right decision.

I think we've made a lot of very good decisions, and that's why we are leader you know in the areas like multiple s roses or or hemophilia. But I would say here clearly you know we should have stayed in the space throughout uh the face of the last decade um because you know uh the topic about obesity is also a topic beyond just you know uh I depositors is a topic of other diseases. If you look at uh, what diseases are cause biological cancer, you know there is a higher rate of cancer in nubes patients and non nomes patients.

If you look at uh kidding diseases, if you look at different I diseases, if you look at potentially new logical diseases like alzheimer and parkinson's, so obesity really has uh influences much broader. And so attacking this, uh, we actually go into prevention of diseases. And this is what healthcare system want from us. Had the systems want us to move more towards the area prevention.

are you surprised by how many how many problems are in obesity?

No, I am not surprised at all. It's uh if you look at a the global population, about fifty percent of the worlds population uh is to be uh at this stage. And um so in order to tackle some of these commodities ties, we will have to tackle the topic of ability.

Now you also working on um uh a brain shuttle technology which allows large of molecules to enter the blood brain barrier. What can this do?

So this uh will be transformative, uh especially for diseases uh that happen the brain like neology ical ceases. Moto was corrosion, alzheimer and parkinson's just to name a few. And what this technology does um IT actually helps the antibody, which is a big molecule, to get much more easily into the brain.

If you take a Normal medicine, uh only or even less than half percent of this medicine that you inject into the body actually makes IT to the brain so it's very hard to treat um diseases that happen in the brain and and why is that? Well we have this blood brain and this black brain barrier is there to protect our brain from viruses, from bacteria, from other things that could go into the brain and could damage our brain and uh with this brain traddles, which is a protein attached, the antibody, we can actually transport the anybody much more easily into the brain, and with that we can treat diseases that otherwise could not be treated as effectively. In fact, we have a very promising altima medicine in our pipeline. Uh in this uh antibody actually uses exactly this uh, technology, and we hope to launch that uh by twenty eight, twenty nine time frame because then we can really tackle one of the biggest problems in healthcare today.

Now you work with a little different partners, uh, in many different areas. Have you done a long paid of time? What what do you think is the the key to forming successful portions in the farm industry? Why are some of them successful and .

some of them are not? Yeah, so we invest about thirteen billion swifts every year in our research development. And with that, we actually the highest spender in terms of R N D in the industry. Now even though that sounds a lot and this is a lot, it's only a fraction of the total money spent uh in a health care in in R N. D.

So it's clear that if you want to be the front tier of innovation, you cannot only rely on projects that run in house but you also actually have to tackle and uh understands uh, some of these projects that are happening outside of our company. So us and other farmers companies are constantly at the look out to find very promising projects, compounds that we could bring in house. Now if we look at our pipeline and what we've delivered over last ten, fifteen years, about fifty percent of the molecules that we've launched, the new medicines came from rush, and the other fifty percent came from the outside.

On the other hand, what I mentioned in the beginning is that if you look at the whole development process is a long process. It's thirteen years on average for the industry. Only one out of ten minutes once make IT.

This is of course, true for our own pipeline, but is also true for everything that you bring in from the outside. So this is basically, you know, the risk that we have to take in order to bring great innovation to patients that also partnerships may feel during this process. But if you want to bring true innovation, this will not happen without a taking any risks.

Now there are also some similarities between between the farmer pipeline and an investment portfolio, right? You invest in product is for the long term to generate returns. Now have you got a particular kind of investment philosophy at rush to make this successful? yes.

So when we look, uh, at our portfolio and our potential new medicines, of course, look at each medicine as an individual, but we also look at the portfolio overall and uh, send to other investments that you would do. You do actually uh M P D calculation. You you calculate, you know what would you have to invest in? What's the potential return? At the same time, we look at something we call probability of success.

And um so we have to understand, you know what's the risk that we're taking in terms of technical scientific risk, but what's also the financial risk. And then when you look at the over portfolio, IT has to make sense. So you know you can do a number of projects that are high risk but also high rewards, but you also have to kind of combining IT with uh, projects, uh, where the certainty is higher.

Uh again, the highly sk higher word projects, there is a reason why the highrises k in higher words because for example, in parkinson's, people have worked for decades for decades to find a new very, very difficult. But if you make IT, of course, it's a huge benefit society, but it's also a big benefit to our company if you make IT so you can make individual search beds, but you can only make such beds because we also have to earn back the money in the order to keep investing now unity, we can do any good for patients if we don't, uh, not able to earn back our N D money. You mentioned .

the beginning your strong position in diagnostics, what the advantage of, of having both diagnostics and for my in house.

uh, I think it's critical if you look at um where health care is going. Health care is going a to expect from us that we improve outcomes but also reduce cost of care um because we know that the health care budgets are limited. And I think here the combination of diagnostics and farmer can play a big role.

So we believe that, uh, there is much more for trends to go towards prevention, stopping disease from progressing but also curing. If you want to prevent the disease, you actually want to find the high risk patients and these highest patients, you want to treat preventively in order for them not to develop disease. Do you need a good diagnostics s to find those patients to then be able to give them the right medicine?

If you want to stop diseased progression, you really have to understand because of that disease. And I find a very talk to treatment to make sure that you stop the progression of the disease in the same for cure, for cure. Uh, you know often times there is a genetic reasons or um other that uh cause of disease to happen again.

You need a diagnostic to understand that in order to give the rights a kind of treatment. Um so we see this trend uh really happening over the next decades. This will be even stronger. And having both diagnostics and farma, we are Better position than any other company to actually um manage to serve the needs of what the health care systems and what patients at the needs across the world.

And where does health care data come in here? Because you you were early here by acquiring foundation medicine and flat one, among other things. Why why is this an important space to be?

Well, healthy data plays a role uh clearly across the different parts uh of uh the value and uh IT plays a big part in research and development. If you want to develop a new medicine or new diagnosis s you have to have a lot of data to understand and how to best target which molecule to design a etra. So the more data you have, the Better IT is for you.

Uh as a starting point to develop new medicines and diagnostic at the same time. I think um when he comes to treatment of patients, S M data plays a big role. Uh for example, you can use um diagnostics and understand you know the cause of disease for a number of different patients and then you can look at how these patients were treated and how these treatments worked. Now if you can go back and you can look at this on a bigger population level, IT will actually help you to decide which treatment to give for what kind of uh, diagnostics for what patients. So to combine that is, I think, very critical to be even Better in treating our patients and improving their lives and being more precisely the diagnostic.

Tell us if we do if we put down a bit further on on innovation um like uh um and naive question, why are some farmers companies Better at innovation and others what what is IT in particular that make some companies stand out?

Um I think one topic is uh culture you know um as a company, I think that something that differentiates us um we are able to recruit and retain the most talent people we have very low turn over. Um in fact, if you benchmark as compared to other companies and industry, uh, we are one of the best, if not the best of companies.

That aspect and given the long nature and the long cycles of our industry is important that we have also a certain level of continuity of people working on certain projects. When people keep switching between projects, I think that's not uh not a very good a thing. The second piece is is is a company you have to uh follow the science and you have to see where is their new scientific breakthrough. Like with the with antibodies like we are now doing with uh using artificial intelligence and using organic ids um in our research and development um and then you have to jump on those. You have to have long breath for those than to become to reality um and I think that's important if you keep changing the course in a business that has such long cycles is actually not good for innovation to happen.

What what is IT that that the rush innovation culture apart. So I think .

one is the the culture we have without people with which is a very epower ring culture. The second piece, I believe is also the unique set up that we have um we have on the farmers side actually two early research engines um one is uh duguay a company in japan that we owned the maturity of another one is in the U S.

Uh called genentech research and early development IT came to us through uh the acquisition of a china tech and the third one is former researcher ally development. He gets a three unique shots at goal to develop uh, medicines. They all have very different cultures, different approaches. And when you look at innovation, it's actually helpful to have this kind of you know different approaches and not only have one uh one approach across how .

is A I going to change the way you will innovate.

So this is actually in the area where key rates so china take research and early development has a huge focus on um we have an amazing team there of uh uh people who world experts in in this area and A I plays and will play a role uh in the entire uh process of research and and development in the early stage of research and development um for example um what what used to be done where you synthesize a lot of different molecules and then you test every molecule in vivo so in the cell to see which one works.

Nowadays what you would do is you take all the data that you have, you uh let A I design uh among thousands and thousands molecules, those molecules that have the best attributes, and then you just test a handful of different molecules um in uh in vivo. And what that means is that we can actually be much faster. We can be much more cost efficient. We can test a lot more different molecules much faster and uh and with that actually bring uh medicine to patients much more quickly.

So that's what can do so. So if you if you do speed fingers, what is going to do to speed?

So we said to goals for R N D H by forty percent and IT doesn't mean that we are particularly bad that we have to set a goal of nine percent. It's just where we believe that the industry will be at the end of the decades when we really implement A I and .

to end and what about costs? How much people will I be?

So costs are our targets to reduce by twenty percent. Um you know on the one hand, we can be more effective, but on the other hand, we also want to do more. Uh, so potentially, we can also increase the number of medicines that we launch every year, which would be great news for patients, but obvious ly also for our company.

So in addition to speed and cost, what what do you think he will do with the with the final drug, with the final products you come up with, will that be significant to Better?

You think yeah, I think that you should have a lot more innovation happening in the much of a period time. And if you have that, you will also um obviously have Better medicines.

Uh I think what I would also do, X A I um is a lot of the manual work that's being done today, like uh you know riding uh study protocols, like doing all the regulatory submissions which are eight hundred nine hundred pages of paper, if you can use A I for all of that um and of course you need to approve read and you need to make sure that everything is correct, but you can must have reduced the amount of effort. And we can use the time of those people not to do, uh yeah manual labor, but really invest the time into developing new medicines. So I think there will be also shifts in the kind of work that people are doing.

So you say that now one one out of ten drugs make IT. What do you think the number will be in ten years time?

Well, on on one hands, uh, you will bring up the volume, right? So that will be helpful. Um in terms of you know what exactly will achieve uh in terms of the success rate, uh, I think you will have still a lot that will not succeed because ultimately you will have to test IT.

And um you know there are a lot of attributes that have to work in order for medicine to work. So but can you imagine if you just increased by a factor of two just to go from ten percent to twenty percent, you would double demand of medicines that are being delivered to to patients。 I mean, that would be huge and a game changer.

What do you think what happen to councils survived rates? Let's say in the next ten years?

I I think IT will continually improve. And um you know the goal is clearly uh to eradicate cancer and uh if you know you look at the time of H I V, when the first minutes more developed, the second medicine must develop I think the the key of a how to um basically achieve the fact that people don't have to die of H A V anymore。

What I should combine medicines and the reason is if you use one medicine, um you the the virus will change, will have different mutations. So IT will escape the medicine. So by combining multiple medicines, you uh you know it's much much harder for this this virus to escape and it's the same for cancer for cancer.

You know when you put a selective pressure on IT by adding a medicine, you know the cells that are you know uh affected by this medicine, they will die. But if there are certain mutations, they will escape the mechanism and they will find a different mechanism and that's what the exactly we we see with cancer. And so by applying multiple uh medicines, you can probably at one stage get to the same situation as as we've done with uh uh infectious uh diseases like H V. And I believe the immunity stem will play a big role. You know if we can activate the mune system to fight the cancer, identify the cancer Better, then I think we also will make a big effort.

Moving onto a europe's uh place in the world hairs. So europe is falling behind uh, china and the us when IT comes to to clinical drug trials. And I think the european and share has half of the last ten years, which is pretty, pretty dramatic. What why is that?

Yeah I mean, if you look at innovation, um I I would say there are probably four other regions in the world where innovation uh really coming from h one is the U S. One is a uh europe. China is really accelerating.

If you look at the patent applications uh, coming out of china is taking over, its its advancing very quickly. And the last area is is japan. Now what's uh the U S.

Is doing quite well is um so all of them have prety strong academia, I would say um but what the U S. Is doing particularly well is that they have a much Better environment for startups. So there is a much Better access to venture capital.

And with that, you have a lot of people actually moving to the U. S. So they have a lot talents going to the U S.

And and you see a lot of the innovation which is translated from academia into despite attacks that actually happened more in the U S. Uh, and probably also china now than, for example, in europe. Um so I think europe has to get that rights. The second piece that europe has to get right is, uh they have to reduce the demount of bureaucracy. If you look at clinical trials tra um these are done in countries where um you have less democracy. If IT takes you a year for from the time you apply for clean control to uh being able to start a clinical trial, that a year of lost time, a year of time where we cannot save a number of patience lives if this medicine makes IT. Um so I think europe really needs to work on on the democracy piece as well.

What particular part of democracy is holding you back? Is this the gdpr related issues or the .

g gdpr related issues? Uh but uh in in general, you know all the approvals that you have to get trial um if that takes a year is just a year lost in time.

You said china was taking over here. What could you be a bit more specific about china's role?

Yeah so uh, looking in china and worst, if you look at, uh, the mount patterns that are coming out of china, this is going up expansion, ally.

Um if you look at the talent that you can find in china, uh I mean it's just amazing you have a lot of people that studied in the best universities in the world that i've gone back to china and uh have open biotech ks uh are working in universities uh and um one has to say, you know if you look at uh the mentality in china is you know they want to to be a leader and then they put all the effort, all the strength of the country, of the people behind that to become A A leader. I think sometimes if you at a uh regions and i'm just going to pick europe because i'm a european so it's easier to pick on yourself. Um you know maybe sometimes we've become too comfortable.

Um you know I would say the prosperity that we have is sometimes also a bit of our enemy know if you want to stay ahead. Um you cannot arrest on the achievements from the past, but you constantly have to work at that. And I think this is where h china has a different .

attitude to which extent and can you tap .

into the talent in a so uh china is actually one of our biggest uh countries in terms of number of people we have there and also in terms of uh um uh you know markets uh sales eua. But beyond that, we don't only have commercial organic tions there over the past years and party decades. We've build up also a presence on the research and and development side.

Um pharma has been there for bit longer but also in diagnosis. S H. We've been there for the last couple of years um and is important because um you know first of all, we want to tap into the talent that is there.

And second, if you have strong R N D presence, you also can tap more much more easily into the biotech because you know you have to connectivity. Um you speak the same language. Uh you can you know only assess the science outside if you have great scientists inside.

And so I think from that aspect, I think we are in the in a pretty good shape. And the china is going to and will IT remain a big priority for us simply also because, uh, there are one point four billion people in china and a lot of these people still don't have great access to to health care. And so there's a lot of work that can still be done.

Are you acquiring patterns and companies in channel?

So we've a done a cup of licensing deals from biotech where we licensed in uh, a number of molecules. And I have to say the science is great.

Is the Better now than in the U.

S. You think? I wouldn't say that at this stage. Uh, I would say, you know, if you look at uh, you know around the globe, U.

S, europe, china and japan are where most of the animation is coming from. U. S. Is clearly, I think, still in the leadership position, but china is catching up very quickly.

Moving on to the the important uh topic of a pricing um of course has always been trade off in the former industry about uh you know how much you charge and how many people will benefit from IT generally, are drug Prices too high now across the world?

Well if you look at uh pricing, you also have to look at the model uh of how innovation happens. Uh as I mentioned, uh you have in farmer uh cycle of about thirteen years to develop new medicine um and you have a risk profile where only one out of ten medicines make IT so you actually have to earn the money back um with one medicine that you couldn't with the other nine that field and you only have a short period of time.

You only have around ten years and in some part of the world this time is shortening, even um ten years to earn back the money. And then you have the entry of by similar you have the entry of generics. And so the benefit to society is of course, already during this ten years when you have uh launched this medicine.

But the benefit of society goes way beyond, if you look at if you look at uh, just the medicines that we have launched uh in our history, 那 forty four medicines are now on the W H O list of sentient medicines like n biotics like volume and uh you know a number of other cancer medicines。 Ea, now if the innovation didn't happen before because there are no incentives for innovation, then these medicines would not be a as widely available. Uh sdr today, in fact, I always say that um our industry is actually the pipeline of the gene rics and by a similar industry.

So if you break that, IT doesn't work. I think a good example uh, where you can see where if you don't have that incentive and IT doesn't work is antibiotics. So there haven't been new antibiotics for fifty years now.

We've been uh developing and biotics to and biotics because we see there's an ethical responsibility and we believe that unfortunately, there will be more condemned that will come. And unfortunately, one of the pandemics that could come could be a actual pandemic and then the vaccines will not work. Then we new, new timidities.

But why is no one, especially not a lot of biotics? Why is no one working on this? Is because the business model doesn't work.

If, you know, you have a company developing a new and biology, what would happen is that antibiotic not be used. IT would only be used once all the other antibodies fail. So there is not a huge incentive for biotech to go in IT.

They have to survive. They have to survive a company like hours. We can invest a certain piece of our money and that we have a in research development to do this.

But biotech s cannot. And unfortunate, a lot of innovation happens in biotech s so you need to create more of an incentive system for this inviting to happen. So in in in conclusion, if we break the incentive system, then, uh, we will be uh, the situation there will be Normal progress in terms of innovation. And that's why I think it's important to understand the full context. When you think about pricing.

what do you think about pricing in less developed markets? And the ethical aspects around that, do you take a different approach than a lot of farmer companies.

So we and I think many other farming companies actually have differential pricing. Yeah the financial pricing uh means that based on also uh you know that you know how well the messing works on the one hands but also what's the affordability you try to Price IT in the fairway. And that means that richer countries will have to pay a little bit more on the medicine, then poorest countries.

And I think this has to be this kind of contract between richer countries and in poor countries. Now if you have you know certain politicians that wants basically in the best Price in the world, which is in that A A country in africa， the dangerous is that a lot farming companies will say, well, um you know if I have to give to developed countries like in europe or the U. S. I have to give the same Price. Is a country in africa I cannot introduce in africa so I think there has to be understanding that we have the rentier pricing between the different parts of the world, and you can have world leaders asking for the same Price as in some country, in africa or in america.

So now you lean five hands, you'll have reduced and equals by twenty percent. You have reduced the time frame, uh, by forty percent. And instead of one out of ten, you know how one out of five succeeding, right? Will that mean lower costs for patients?

Well, I think that um again, you have to look at the total impacts that you have now if you if you uh go to a situation where you prevent disease from happening, then maybe that one medicine costs more, but the total costs because you don't have to give this medicine for the next ten to twenty years goes down or you have less treatments in hospitals because people get less sick eta. So I think you have to look at, uh, it's not as simple as saying, you know each each medicine, but you have to look at the total impact on the healthy system. And it's clear, and that's our commitment. We want to help improve the outcome for patients, but we also want to reduce the costs in the healthcare system, and we have to reduce IT by going more towards prevention, by going towards treating people lesson to hospital, but more in the homelessness um because you know if people constant go to the hospital, that also drives costs in the system um plus you know people were sick, also don't want to be confronted with their disease all the time so that you actually don't want to go to the hospital. So I think if we can get that done, we can bring down the cost and the health care system all.

Moving on to leadership. You being the co of rush for a bit more than a what's the most fun part being A C O rush?

yes. So i've been with rush for now uh twenty one years and um you know I love this company, I love the culture in this company and I love the purpose a of of our company. And if you know if you can see the kind of inviting that we're working on, it's just uh, amazing. And you know you can see the impacts that you can have on patients lives.

I mean, when when I talk to uh some of our a researchers and medical doctors now when we run a clinical trial that sometimes takes three to four years in the face and then the day when they see the results and they see that the results are positive and what impact they can have in patients lines. You you have people that have tears in their eyes because they see the kind of impact that they can have and um so I think that's just amazing um you know to work on something like this. The second piece is in maybe that's also why i've been with the company for twenty one years.

I really care about the people in our organza and for me is fun to work with these people. It's fun also, you know, to develop leaders to see them grow. I I think that's also something that is very fulfilling for me. So those are things that they really enjoy and that I can do even more in the role that I mean, right now.

what's the biggest difference between you and severin ch.

one who was your predecessor? So i've been working closely with him over the last h four, five years. H when I was the agnostic CEO. Um I would say, uh, two things that I I see. One is a you study finance and law and i'm a scientist.

So yeah you got got P H D.

Biology have P H D molex biology and the uh research uh in the area of cancer oncology. Uh I think that's one element. Uh the second piece is um no if you look at where I lived grew up in my life, um I was born in germany but with the age of nine my parents move to singapore, to asia and and this is where I grew up.

I lived uh in total of twelve years in asia. I went to the U S. To study and and work in the us. So it's something that I really enjoy IT working in so many different cultures. And I would say those are two elements of that are probably a difference.

What did you take away from your bring asia?

Well, first of all, uh, singapore is at the equity. So I I loved the one weather and I love the food but beyond dad.

the chilly grab.

for example, uh, you know you name IT uh I I just love uh, asian food to the point where you know every time we go I would say let's go eat asian and my family is uh not too happy about that because I would go eat asian every day no but beyond that, I think you can learn something from every every culture. Um clearly singapore, the work attitude, right? I mean they have a very strong work attitude.

Um uh you know if you look at the U S, uh the approach to innovation, I think the culture is more than some of the asian cultures and I think IT helps me in the role that i'm in because, uh, I work with people from all kind of different parts of the words and uh what what i've always seen and what i've realized is, you know, in a certain culture like the german or the dog culture, people tell you directly what the problem is. In other cultures, sometimes you have to read a little between the lines so to to I think one of think is this cultural sensitivity to really understand the other side that you are talking to. And um I think IT just helps me really working with the different regions in the world.

People with the P, H, D are often less, less risk appetite. Are you where are you on the risk seeking scale?

Yeah I don't know if a people with a PHD have A I haven't heard that theory um but um I would say you know I think without taking risks you cannot be successful know in anything in life to be successful you have to step out of your comfort on and how do you make decisions are you are you .

an tuition decision maker or are you basing everything on analysis?

Um I think here uh again, you probably have to have a baLance. Um I like to understand the data and I like to understand the problem. I think often times um when people don't try to fully understand what the problem is, they come up with solutions that don't work. Um you can only get to the right solutions and and topics that make life of everyone easy in the company.

If if you first fully understand the problem and then what for me is important is to have sparing partners to understand the different perspectives uh on the data and and uh I think that's important to come to decision um because uh you may have one perspective and other people have different perspectives. So too really fully understand that. But at the same time, you have to also get two point where you then quickly make a decision.

You know often times people just spin along on the data and they never get the decision. Now what one of things I often do also is I talk to the different experts. Now IT depends, is a decision I have to make, or is that someone else in the orgasm and has to make decision.

But if it's my decision to make, I try to talk to different experts, and I try to understand, you know, that their view and their decision conform with what I believe. If that happens, I think that often times these are probably easier decisions, right? If I see that everyone else is a different opinion, oh, then I must be wrong.

And but often times it's something in between. You know where you have different, then I know it's a difficult problem, right when you know you have very different opinions and then at one point time you have to make uh uh bad based on the fact, based on um the information that you have, you have to make the decision um and you have to go forward. And you know often times you know you have to hope that decisions right, but there may be times when your decisions wrong.

But some people you can talk to are c OS in other companies who have been educated at rush. You have C O will be a marine uh buyer gelid uh air asana, uh now why has rush pin so successful in and developing leaders?

Yeah ah I think on the one hand is clearly a uh sign that we have a good culture and uh on the other hand, IT shows um that we have been very good in hiring great people and developing those people. So I think this uh ability to develop people and have a strong focus on people is what drives a lot of uh you know h innovation and also a good decision making because at the end, innovation is also based on good decision making, right?

So you know, investing people, I think, is something very critical. And it's not something that we've just done over the last couple of years. It's something that we've done for a very, very long period of time, and that's how you build a strong base of strong talents in the organization.

You said you'd been at a rush for twenty one years. And if we take the last three CEO, they have been there for an average of fifteen years as CEO. Um now you look at the S M P five hundred, the average time is five years.

So uh incredible, incredible length of of service. What are them? What are the kind of the process council that .

so if you look at uh the fact that we are hundred and twenty seven years old, IT shows you you know that we've been quite successful. But with this kind of model um what the benefit is, is clearly um that given the fact that we have a very long cycle of a development of you know thirteen years on average, um you also have to have a long breath. You can't you can't uh change direction, everyone to three years because actually then nothing will happen.

H in this industry you have to have determination, you have to have stamina, you have to have experience because you will have uh that bags um but at the same time you need to be open to change um and uh drive change forwards and uh be also very performance or its um so clearly the long view is important, but also doing this long view you have to deliver. And um you know if you look at just the last quarters where we had very significant growth of nine percent, it's what I think we also deliver in the short term. It's not only just long term and weight we will deliver in the long term. No, for us, it's very clear that you also have to deliver on the short term.

What are the advantage of of having uh, family backing so the rush family and the family family have the majority of the voting rights in the company. What are the what kind of advantage so that I give .

you yeah this long term thinking no if you um currently change direction in the company first all of this size I mean to change reaction of a company of more than one thousand people also takes a bit of time um uh and then you look at the long cycle of of innovation that we need so this uh long term thinking, I think this is very critical apart again with delivering short and performance and h the structure we have is really beneficial for that.

Some person thinks, um Thomas, being ahead of an incredible former company, do you live a very healthy life?

Well, uh I try uh for sure um of course uh I think is also important because uh a job like this is quite intense in terms of demount of time that you work kieta. So uh being in a healthy uh space is critical to actually deliver performance.

I think what do you eat?

What do you eat? Prince's, oh uh extremely healthy, you know um right now um over the last couple of years um so to at home we are healthy eh, couple of hydrate uh we eat a quite a little amount of meat uh eh so uh but I have to admit it's more my wife than myself. So you know sometimes when i'm on a business trip I can escape that a little bit, but when I mean home, I can .

sports.

I love sports, uh, but uh, you know, ages catching up with me. You know, I I love a soccer. I I used to play when I was a child, and I love squash swash. Uh, I guess that has to do with the fact that um I grew up in asia and swash is a big thing in asia. And if you look at the amount of running and calories that you burn actually squashes one of the best boards you can do.

I don't think you could say that age is watching up. You you're only forty nine is super .

yeah but you know I see is I see is when I play soccer now with my son and and other friends, uh, ten years ago, you know I could keep up right now I have to say, you know playing with thirty years old becomes quite difficult for me. You know sometimes my head knows what to do, but my body doesn't a catch up with my head. So you have a .

slogan in rush um that you cure medicine so that people can spend more time with the people they love. How do you spend uh you all time with the people you love?

Yeah so basically ninety percent loss of my free time I spend with my family and with my is we kids um the kids you know we go hiking, we go do sports, uh uh also enjoy going on holiday uh with them um we go once a year, we go um is mostly easter. We go somewhere into the sun because you know after a long winter we need to recover and really get energy from the sun so we do that uh and and really like that.

I guess IT also has to do with the fact that I grew up at the equator, that I really long for uh warmth and and sun after long winter. What do you read? Um so being being uh science a geek, I guess uh I love reading uh lots of science um you know actually still reads uh publications uh because I just find IT very fascinating um and he keeps me up to speed on what's happening on the science side. Um that's why I also love having conversations with scientists because, uh I learned something uh all the time um so I like that uh you know I spend love time you know reading up on uh you know politics uh also history, things like that. I really enjoy reading those things.

What is you your advice to Young?

Yeah so having sweet ts, uh I guess I have to give uh advice quite a lot to my children. Um you know one of the things that that I tell them is, uh you know what happens in social media is not the real world. The real words can actually be quite exciting and people should spend more time in in the real world um and you know often times what you see in social media just also not completely true.

Um the other thing I tell them is um you know there are no shortcuts in life. Um so you know if you want to achieve something, the only way to achieve this is through hard work. There is no other way than to achieve things than other than through hard work and uh and I think that's important for people uh uh and the Younger generation also to realize, 嗯嗯。

well, sounds like you really, really hard. Big thanks for uh for being on the pool coast. Big thanks for curing all the diseases. And please, uh keep up the good work in boston.

Thank you very much for the conversion.