Scientist, clinical development, medical affairs, marketer, commercial strategist — there are not many hats that Adele Gulfo, chief business development and commercial officer at Sumitovant Biopharma, hasn’t worn in her 25-plus year career. A 2016 and 2007 PharmaVoice 100 honoree, she previously served as president and general manager of Pfizer’s U.S. primary care business unit, commercial operations and market access across all business units. These units also accounted for more than $13 billion in revenue and included oversight of multiple blockbuster brands such as Lipitor, Viagra, Celebrex, Lyrica, Spirivia, Aricept and Premarin.

Gulfo’s combined ability to deeply understand the science behind a brand, work closely with thought leaders and create a commercial architecture for success has become her hallmark as a pharmaceutical powerhouse and leader.

Along her prolific health career journey, Gulfo has learned that being able to self-assess and pivot is key to a successful career audit.

“I always say step back after a couple of years in a role and think about where do you see yourself and where do you want to go,” she says. “And then you can think about how to best prepare to be successful in whatever that aspirational role is.”

In her current role, Gulfo is elevating how technology and data can be used to not only understand the underlying science of a prospective drug but how that drug can bring value to patients, physicians and payers.

“We want to leverage technology and data to bring medicines to patients faster, and to make them better wherever possible,” she says.

Listen to the podcast or you can also read the transcript of the conversation below. 

Editor's note: This show was produced and edited by Dan Limbach.

Interview transcript

Welcome to the Week podcast by PharmaVoice powered by Industry Dive.

In this episode Taren Grom, Editor in Chief Emeritus at PharmaVoice meets with Adele Gulfo, chief business and commercial development officer, of Sumitovant Biopharma Inc.

Sumitovant’s portfolio of companies include four wholly owned companies: Urovant, Enzyvant, Altavant, and Spirovant. Additionally, Sumitovant is the majority owner of Myovant, a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. For more information about Sumitovant and its portfolio of companies and the products discussed, including important product safety information, visit sumitovant.com. 

Taren: Adele welcome to our WoW woman of the week podcast program.

Adele: Thank you so much. It's great to be here and I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Taren: Adele, I don't even know where we start. In full transparency, you and I have known each other for a lot of years, you've had a very, very successful career, including leading the commercialization and development strategy for several blockbuster brands such as Lipitor and Crestor. You're a member of the Committee of 200 or c 200 — an invitation only organization of the world's most successful women business leaders, you serve on several boards. So, I have to know what led you to take on the significant role as chief business and development commercial Officer as Sumitovant Biopharma as well as the interim role as Chief Commercial Officer of Myovant, my goodness woman, you're busy.

Adele: Thank you for the question. Let me start by saying yes, I love the role that I have at Sumitovant Biopharma as the chief commercial and business development officer.

What led me to this role is as you know, Taren, I have spent many many years in large pharma in running big operations. And at Pfizer, for example, I was running a $12 billion business across US primary care with several multibillion dollar brands across multiple therapeutic areas, had large sales forces, big brand teams, big organizations, and my role became a bit more of what I like to say air traffic controller. I was moving resources and people and making decisions about how to commercialize and how to how to manage our brands, but it was from a level that I realized was a little bit off from what I loved about my early days in the pharmaceutical industry. So as much as I loved my role at Pfizer, and many of the big operating roles that I had, I missed some of that ability to work very closely with understanding the deep science about what was happening inside a brand or a mechanism of action working closely with the with the thought leaders, the patient advocates, the brand teams etc. etc. So after close to 30 years, I wanted to move to smaller biotech. I wound up at a networking event and I heard about this company called Myovant. And Pfizer had actually made a significant investment in the IPO. So the initial public offering for Myovant to go public. I became connected to the company I learned about their technology, both for advanced prostate cancer as well as the drugs in development for women's health. And I said this is the type of company I feel I can add significant value and was something that really gave me the impetus to say you know what I want to this is where I want to figure out how I could add value. So I fast forward, I'm now at Sumitovant and Sumitovant has Myovant as one of its portfolio companies. As I said it is a publicly traded company. It's traded on the New York Stock Exchange. It's one of our five companies. We have four other companies that are all wholly owned subsidiaries, Myovant’s publicly traded and in addition to my role at Sumitovant I serve on the board for Myovant. And that's where I could go into the role of the interim Commercial Officer. But let me pause there because I think it's a bit of a mouthful, making sure that everyone is clear on how Sumitovant and Myovant work together.

Taren: Well, thank you so much for that clarification. I do appreciate it. And so your role is really very all encompassing. You're looking at a lot of different areas. And I loved how you said air traffic controller. So that kind of leads me to my next question and you went through quite a bit of your professional history. Among all of your roles, what has been your most challenging, your most fulfilling, and then the one that stretched you the most professionally? So let's start with the most challenging…

Adele: As I was saying, as you know, Sumitovant is a fairly new company and we were formed in December of 2019. And as I mentioned, Myovant is a portfolio company. It's publicly traded, and probably April of 2020, right at the start of COVID a situation happened where Myovant’s chief commercial officer had resigned and moved to another another role.

Probably a month or so very shortly thereafter, we received from the FDA or Myovant received from the FDA notice of expedited review for their product in advanced prostate cancer. So for men with advanced prostate cancer, FDA was giving expedited review for Orgovyx. So here we are in, let's say May of 2020, with an action date of December of 2020. And Myovant at the time is basically a clinical stage company. They had a skeleton of a commercial organization, and what was needed to happen and I was asked if I could step in and fill this void, as they as Myovant needed to build out the infrastructure to successfully launch or Orgovyx into the marketplace. So just think about this. We're in the middle of COVID, Myovant is a West Coast company, it needed to build out commercial operations, hire managed care teams, build out a salesforce, marketing, you name it. All of the things to go from phase three clinical development, where they had an excellent clinical development organization running all the trials for these drugs, to bringing a drug to market and actually commercializing it. So part of this became my co interim chief commercial officer role. Where I was day to day working to not only higher sales forces and marketing teams and managed care teams all virtually, but pull together what would be the go-to-market strategy for this oncology product, a significant advance for men with advanced prostate cancer. So, I say extremely challenging from a time compressed standpoint. We had you know, from May till December to do everything that needed to happen to bring this drug to market and doing it in a world of COVID, where were just learning how to work together virtually. And don't forget I'm East Coast in New York City and working with all of these teams on the West Coast and they are coming together but many of these people still to this day have not met each other. But fast forward and what a fulfilling role. Now, look back and I say most challenging from time and a COVID perspective and doing this virtually, but extremely fulfilling to see this advance come to the market for men with prostate cancer.

Taren: No pun intended, but wow, I can't even imagine what else she could throw onto that pile. They could have more challenging than the circumstances dictated originally. So from all of that what are some of those key learnings that you found? Like in terms of setting up that team in such an expedited fashion? You had to really lean into some of your, as you said, 30 years of experience.

Adele: What you learn by having many years of experience, even if you've not done something exactly the same way you could tap into so many different experiences that have been part of where what got me here today, and tapping into all of those largely the ability to connect with people, the ability, whether it be virtual, whether it be real life, I think we learned that we can do a lot of our operations and pharmaceutical commercialization and development virtually. So that's probably the biggest lesson learned is don't think just because we've done it one way for many years that it's the only way or the right way. We just look at hiring 100 sales reps. Oh virtually hiring marketing teams they haven't met with each other in real life but they come together on Zoom or Microsoft Teams they find a way to connect. We've done social group gatherings utilizing technology. So I think it really helped us accelerate what eventually we know is, quote, the digital transformation of our industry. But being a part of that and living that it was really exciting. And I think that's the biggest learning is that we can find new ways of doing things even if even if we haven't done them in this way in the past.

There's no stopping when you have a team of people and you have an important medicine that you need to bring to market and everyone with that shared vision. It's amazing what we can accomplish.

Taren: Well, kudos to you and I would fully expect that you wouldn't advocate for doing the launch in seven once again. But as you said, you'll learn that it's possible and that you don't have to do everything the way it's always been done. And let's face it, the industry of abhors a vacuum, it will find a way to figure itself out when we talk about Myovant and Sumitovant. What are some of those strategic goals that you have for the company from a Chief Commercial Officer perspective and then from a business development officer, you've already launched the one drug for Myovant. What else is on your plate right now or what's coming down the pike?

Adele: Well, thank you for the question because Sumitovant is a young company, but it is pretty mighty. I will say that Sumitovant has a portfolio of five companies. Just just to be clear. There's Urovant, Altavant, Spirovant, and Enzyvant all are wholly owned subsidiaries, and as I mentioned Myovant. So Sumotivant is made up of these amazing companies and inside of these companies are just think about them as brand teams or product teams. And are all in the process of either being commercialized, or in the process of running through the development phase. So for example, Urovant last year, launched Gemtesa, a drug for overactive bladder. At Altavant, we have drugs in development for pulmonary arterial hypertension. At Spirovant, we're looking at gene therapy for cystic fibrosis. And at Myovant, as I mentioned, there's Orgovyx and there’s Myfembree for uterine fibroids. And Myovant also has Myfembree in development and filed for endometriosis. So just think about all that's going on, and as Chief Commercial Officer, my role is to ensure that all of these important innovative medicines are getting to patients globally and that we are advancing the science and advancing these medicines in their development or commercialization across the spectrum of therapeutic areas in which we operate.

I will mention that what's a little unique about Sumitovant is you know, a lot of pharma companies, biotech companies, it's our goal, it’s in our blood, to bring innovative medicines to patients, We are there to fill unmet needs and to help patients and make a difference in their lives. And that's our goal at Sumitovant. But what's a little different is the way in which we want to leverage technology and data to bring those medicines to patients faster and to make them better wherever possible. So that when we bring these medicines to patients there, and actually as we're commercializing them, we're leveraging everything that is available today with the explosion of health data out there. How do we leverage all of that data to develop our drugs faster, and commercialize them better.

Taren: Thank you for bringing in that piece about the data and the technology. I understand that those aspects of the company are so important that it's one of the key pillars of the organization and the fact that you all work hand in hand. And in obviously, you have a connection with Myrtle Potter, who is the CEO, and you all had a relationship before. So similarly to that and that how does that relationship play because I know I've spoken to her and she said no technology is so important for us commercialization is so important to us. So you all are really working well you know, hand in glove together.

Adele: Yes. And I think I think one of the things that makes that working relationship is like minded, right? We both have a passion for bringing medicines to patients. And we both see the need and the desire to truly leverage data and technology to make everything we do better, to make our processes better, to make us smarter, to help us commercialize better, from a managed care perspective and the need to put economic value propositions in front of payers and physicians. And with the amount of data that's available today — think about electronic medical record — think about all of the unique systems that are out there, it's it we've got to find a way to tap into all of these different data sources and triangulate them to create and demonstrate value so that our medicines so that's the value of our medicines are realized not only to patients and physicians but also to payers. And that's something that it's very exciting to be a part of, and you may even look on our website, we have a Chief Algorithmics and Analytics Officer. So we're serious about using. I don't want to use the term big data but using data and algorithms to help us be faster and help us be smarter at everything we do. And I of course in my years we've always leveraged technology and data at pharma. But when you make it a core pillar of your business, it's taking it to the next level.

Taren: It is taking it to the next level. I don't know that I've ever heard of a company having a chief algorithms officer. So, you know, again, kudos to you for being future focused and again, as you said, like minded it. That's really how you all are moving the needle from from my perspective. I'm going back until a little bit of the commercial ops. Commercialization is changing pretty rapidly given the omnichannel world in which we live, but yet not at all because the gateway is still the physician. So through your decades of experience, what are you seeing in terms of the trends that are impacting commercialization right now? And is it reaching the patient on a more personalized level? Or is it providing them with more options and how they receive those communications?

Adele: Well, there's something you said in there that I just want to comment as much as the physician truly is a key decision maker, I think the trend, and we've seen this over the years and perhaps even more so with our healthcare systems being so burdened with all of COVID, that the payer is actually extremely critical, either equally important or even more important than the physician. Because if we have these great medicines and we have physicians who want to use them, but these medicines need to be accessible and affordable to patients, and the way that happens is ensuring that the payers really understand the value proposition. They're not going to care. The drug is safe and effective. Great. That's table stakes. Now you have to figure out how do you ensure that you're creating and demonstrating what a value proposition. We always talk about our TPP or target product profile, we need a target value profile, we need to make sure that payers understand that clear and compelling profile of the drug from how it creates value, not only that the patient gets better, but how much it saves them from hospital stays or how much is it enabling them for example, with Orgovyx they could stay home and take an oral pill versus going to the clinic and getting an injection getting a shot. Especially now do those men want to be exposed to COVID? Or would they rather stay home and take a pill? How is that helping them? What are the differences? Same with all of the drugs that I can speak about, Gemtesa, a once a day pill for overactive bladder, it's actually crushable. It can be used now in long term care centers so that patients aren’t going to feel the need to have to wear diapers or other things to control their overactive bladder.

We have new technology, new advances that are helping them. All of the attributes of these drugs need to have a demonstration of as I said their economic place in the market as well as their efficacy, and their safety from a regulatory perspective, or clinical perspective. That's great that those are the days I can remember many years ago but today, having those that managed care piece is important. And I say this, you know as it relates to commercial ops because data for us at Sumitovant our Chief Algorithmic Analytics Officer plays an extremely important role to help triangulate all the various data sources so we can come up with the best economic value proposition for medicines and we can actually help our physicians and our sales reps know which zip codes have approval for managed care reimbursement. Where do patients have the most access? Let's make sure our physicians know that patients coming into their office now have access, they can get this new drug whether it be Gemtesa, Orgovyx or Myfembree but it's on formulary, and it's a $10 copay or whatever it is. Those are the things that we can be much more precise about in how we how we communicate to physicians and how we communicate to patients and payers.

Taren: Adele, thank you so much for bringing that point to light because you're absolutely spot on. Getting that drug to the development continuum is just the first step. And but unless it's going to be on a formulary, if payers don’t understand the value that it brings to the patient, it doesn't matter. As you said safety and efficacy are table stakes. It's getting that job to the patient in an affordable way that matters. So thank you so much for bringing those examples to light. You know throughout your career you've been obviously as we noted so successful and it's through a multitude of corporate roles, but you serve on several boards as well. So I'd love for you to kind of explain how do you leverage your experience? How did you leverage your experience into a board role? Because as women progress through their careers it seems to be the next step. So you've had a lot of fulfillment in your corporate roles. How do you bring that experience to different roles on boards?

Adele: Well, first I have to say that I find my board roles extremely fulfilling, and I'll talk about EnPro Industries. It's an industrial engineering company, it's leveraging totally different parts of science, right? It's material science, it's engineering. At the end of the day, I look for companies to sit on boards where I could add value. And that value for me comes from is it a company that's r&d focused now. The r&d may not be drugs in life, you know, drug development, but in this case, it's bringing highly engineered technical products for whether it be semiconductors, whether it be aerospace. So it's a very exciting, highly technical company. So now I have to think about how am I going to add value to this company. At the end of the day business is still business and for me, I always say to women or men, if you want to sit on a board, think about the role of that CEO. And at the end of the day, he's got to deliver the sales, the profits, the earnings to the shareholders, and being able to relate to the CEO in a way that that makes you feel that the two of you could come together and feel that you're going to add something, you're going to be able to brainstorm, you're going to be able to connect with that CEO in a way that they're gonna want you around the table when they have challenging business decisions to make. So the advice I give is to get p&l experience that's in the form of an operating role, whether it be for a particular region of the country, whether it be for a country, whether it be a brand or a division, something that says you own the p&l and you're managing the sales of the product, or the division and you're managing the profits and the expenses. So that when you look to sit on a board and you're talking to the CEO or other board members, most of the boards that that I've been accustomed to or have had the pleasure of meeting with board members, many if not most of them have what I call p&l or operating experience. They're in a situation where they've had to run big businesses or a piece of business where they are accountable for that p&l. And that's what makes them relatable to the CEO and that CEOs gonna say look, I want to have you as a thought partner, and to help govern and to help goverance and oversee the business to make sure that that they are maximizing the value of the products in the business that they have.

Taren: That's great advice is that does that same advice translate to a sending to the C suite as well? What is some of that advice? And obviously, you're sitting in a C suite position. So what are some of those things that women need to think about if they want to, to get into that corner office?

Adele: You know, there's a lot of ways to think about that the question because getting to that you can get to the C-suite in a number of different ways, right? You don't have to be an operator or a general manager of a business to be in a like I am now as Chief Commercial Officer. I know many women who have chosen a legal career or a career in HR, or, corporate communications, or investor relations, all of these can lead to roles in the C-suite. But what I find is it depends on whether or not you have further aspirations to be either the CEO eventually or if you want to sit on the board of a publicly traded company. For those at career aspirations, you need to think about what sort of operating roles you can have as you're still in your career developing stages. So for me, you know, very early early on in my career, I thought I wanted to be a scientist. I spent my early days, I was actually full time as a PhD student in molecular genetics, I graduate level work there I thought I wanted to be a scientist. My early days in pharma, we're in medical affairs, clinical development, running clinical programs, investigator meetings with physicians, but it was only till you know, I said, I really love the business side. So I moved from science, got an MBA in marketing and moved over to the commercial side of the pharmaceutical industry. There are people who stay on the science side and then become the chief medical officer. Also really grateful to have but you need a different set of capabilities and a different set of educational skills and experiences along the way. So do a career audit, I always say step back after a couple of years, after you're you're in whatever role you're in and think about where do you see yourself and where do you want to go? And then you can think about how to best prepare to be successful in whatever that that aspirational role is.

Taren: That's tremendous advice. And thank you for reminding me about your scientific background. I had forgotten that for a moment. And it gives you such a unique perspective on where you are, and how you look at commercialization I would imagine and thinking about what that science is, and it's got to give you a bit of an edge. Would you agree?

Adele: Personally, yes, I do think that having a different point of view, having something where I feel I'm steeped in the science so I truly not only can appreciate and understand the science, but it helps me to bring a different perspective, if I'm in a room with a bunch of sales or marketing people as I was early in my career, having that differentiated point of view, made me stand out. I would bring things to the table that were slightly different. And I think that is for me, that was appreciated. And that's how I was seen as different. And you know, you think about when either you're positioning, a brand a product in the market, you always have to think about what's your unique value proposition. How is this brand if it's in the same class of drugs what makes it different? What makes it unique? Every individual if you're trying to position yourself early in your career, you have to think about what's making you different, why are you unique? What's your value proposition to that company? And that's something we also should think about and for me having that science edge, I think it helped differentiate me and was part of my part of my value proposition although I can't say I was thinking about it then but it's easy to reflect on it now.

Taren: And you know, nothing happens by accident, right? It always it's it you might reflect on it differently now, but certainly, it's been part of your brand. And it's such an appreciated part of your brand.

Adele: I love how you how you say that because I do think you know not to be overly trite about it. But yes, you do have to work on your own brand, as a person, and as bringing value to a company and how do you want to be seen, what makes you unique from your resume? You know how many resumes come especially now in a virtual environment? How are you going to quickly be seen as someone who is is different? What is it about your brand? I love that.

Taren: And I don't know that that's something that you know, people innately think about, but it's certainly something that we need to bring forward, especially women to provide the differentiator it's a competitive workforce out there. So you do need to stand out and figure out what those unique, those unique experiences that you can bring to the table, as you said, because you've had so many different roles, I'm curious, is there a piece of leadership advice that you've received that you've carried with you through the years?

Adele: You know, there's so much there's so many good lessons and there's so many good learnings of leadership and personally, I still love to read as much as I can. I'm one of those people who feel that there's always more to learn about leadership and about how to lead and inspire teams, especially teams and really successful people. It's very different leading a team of young people, let's say a young salesforce versus a team of senior vice presidents right. Or when at Pfizer when I was running the US business, I had five regional presidents or very senior people. So running a team and leading a team, first depends on what you're doing what you're trying to accomplish. But in any case, I just always find that for me, being myself I can't help it but just being authentic. Having a sense of humility, knowing I don't have all the answers, being transparent, sharing what what challenges I'm facing, and knowing that I you know, I need the help of others. I feel that just being honest and authentic and driving your teams and inspiring people to make sure that we're all working towards a common goal. There's some of the basic principles of leadership that I think are important that I live by and you know, we hear that all the time, be your authentic self, well, you can say that but it's another thing to really come to work every day and be be who you are. And don't try to be someone else because people pick up on that.

Taren: Excellent advice again, absolutely. Now, Adele, finally, and because this is our Wow podcast program. Can you share with us an accomplishment or a wow moment that shaped or transformed your career?

Adele: Wow, you know, it's a tough question for me. But when you use the word shaped your career, I have to think way, way, way back. I mentioned that, you know, I started in the pharma industry on the medical side when I was in medical affairs, I was working very closely with our physician thought leaders and physicians on clinical trials. So I would say what shaped me was when Lipitor, which was still in development, it was atorvastatin in phase three. I was at Parke Davis prior to the merger with Pfizer, and it was to join a it was actually to form a pre-launch commercialization team to bring it atorvastatin or Lipitor to market. So, making that change for me from being on the medical side to the commercial side, I think that's what shaped me. And then of course, having the drug like Lipitor, where it was multi, you know, it reached a billion dollars in a very short time it had the impact on the lives of so many patients and was very unique because of my experience and my, quote, clinical background, the drug was developed in a way that I don't think I mean, it was unprecedented in the number of clinical trials that that we had done for Lipitor to study it in all sorts of different patient populations from very rare genetic disorders like homozygous FH patients studied in patients who have diabetes and patients who have hypertriglyceridemia. So just the wealth of clinical data around atorvastatin or Lipitor I think, helped shape it in the marketplace. And at the same time, it really shaped me because I became known as a quote commercial expert and launch expert being a part of Lipitor, the most, you know, one of the most not still the most successful launches in our history. So I have to go back to the early days and say it was probably that that really helped shape my career and a lot of people still think of me and think of the Lipitor launch.

Taren: Well, it was certainly a demarcation point in the industry for sure. In terms of thinking about blockbusters and what that meant before Lipitor. And now after Lipitor, and I love that you brought in Parke Davis for the kids in the audience that's like say that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings, right.

Adele it has been such a delight to speak with you thank you so much for sharing so many of your terrific insights and your advice and your leadership lessons with us. I want to wish you continued great success and look forward to seeing what the company does going forward and what you do going forward. So thank you. So much for being part of our wealth podcast program.

Adele: Thank you so much, and I definitely will stay connected. It was really my pleasure and delight to share some of these stories. I hope the audience finds them helpful and and useful as they are going on daily leadership.

Thanks for listening to this episode of WoW, the Woman of the Week podcast. For more WoW episodes visit pharmavoice.com.  

Sumitovant’s portfolio of companies include four wholly owned companies: Urovant, Enzyvant, Altavant, and Spirovant. Additionally, Sumitovant is the majority owner of Myovant, a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. For more information about Sumitovant and its portfolio of companies and the products discussed, including important product safety information, visit sumitovant.com.