Multidimensional approach

Lessons learned and challenges

Working from home

Full speed

Protective gear, once the domain for workers in specialized clean rooms, has become a more commonplace sight during the coronavirus crisis.

Science

Containing COVID-19 to serve patient needs

The coronavirus crisis has not only challenged the medical community to seek new treatments and vaccines. Keeping up with the production of existing drugs is equally challenging. Novartis, which has over 60 manufacturing sites worldwide, has taken a series of measures to maintain production levels and serve millions of patients in need of treatments.

Text by Goran Mijuk, photos by Laurids Jensen

Face masks have become ubiquitous during the coronavirus crisis. According to Allied Market Research, the global market for face masks is set to rise to nearly USD2.5 billion by 2027.

Table of contents

Multidimensional approach

Lessons learned and challenges

Working from home

Full speed

Published on 26/07/2020

In mid-January 2020, when China stepped up emergency measures across the country during the Lunar New Year festivities to slow the speed of the coronavirus outbreak, Ruibin Wang’s thoughts were already circling around the months and years ahead.

Together with his leadership team, the head of the Novartis drug production site in Beijing was not only focusing on the emerging pandemic. His main concern was for the millions of existing patieqnts who were in need of medicines.

Wang feared that patients, especially those suffering from chronic conditions who need regular deliveries, could soon experience supply shortages because the Beijing site had been closed during the New Year celebrations and could remain shut down for an extended period due to the government’s emergency measures.

“The site was down during the Lunar New Year festivities, and on January 30 the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a ‘Public Health Emergency of International Concern,’” Ruibin Wang remembered. “Before we could expect to restart production, we had to introduce a series of actions to safeguard our workforce and protect patients’ lives in order to receive the green light from regulators.”

The measures the leadership team introduced during January not only helped the Beijing site to resume production relatively quickly. It later allowed the more than 60 Novartis production sites across the globe to install safety measures to continue operations and keep up producing medicines for patients across the globe.

One sign of COVID-19 is rising temperature. At workplaces around the world, employees take regular temperature measurement.

Multidimensional approach

“We followed a multidimensional approach, which aimed at five key goals: caring for people, workplace health and safety, emergency management, proactive communication and close contact to local authorities,” Helen Wang, who leads the site’s People & Organization function, explained.

During one of the leadership calls that the company held to update the heads of other production sites, Wang detailed: “Besides mask distribution to all associates, a hotline was installed to provide mental health support during this difficult time. Also, we introduced remote working for indirect staff.”

Other measures, she specified, included temperature monitoring of staff, as well as daily health monitoring of associates, who were also asked to provide health details via an app. Third parties could only enter the premises if they could show clean health records for the past two weeks.

It goes without saying that the leadership team also introduced ubiquitous use of disinfectants across the entire site, which was regularly cleaned at important traffic crossing points, such as entrance doors. Even when going to the canteen, associates were checked for their body temperature, and they were asked to sit at separate tables to reduce contagion risk.

“Besides concentrating our efforts to care for our associates, we also made sure the commitment to patients was maintained by safeguarding the timely delivery of medicines,” Wang explained. “For this, we not only strengthened relations with our suppliers and partners, but were also in direct contact with the local government. This was very important, for example, when we needed to raise our supply for masks, which we obtained through the government.”

Containing COVID-19

A helping hand must be protected.

Lessons learned and challenges

Thanks to the introduction of the emergency measures, Beijing was already operational on February 3. And by February 18, the Novartis site in Zhongshan, which had faced stricter control given its vicinity to Wuhan, was also able to resume production after local regulators lifted a temporary curfew to allow vital production sites to start operations again.

“The measures that were introduced in Beijing helped us resume production and continue to provide the necessary medicines to patients in need,” said Jack Wu, who heads the Zhongshan site, which lies in southern China bordering Hong Kong. “The early precautions were also important to stay calm and remain focused on our work and show our colleagues around the world that, even under very difficult and unusual circumstances, we can continue to live up to our mission and deliver our medicines to as many patients as possible,” Wu added.

In Stein, Switzerland, for example, the lessons learned from China were readily embraced, even though associates struggled as the crisis started to pick up steam in Europe in early March when countries across the continent shut down borders and introduced strict controls and partial curfews.

Stein, which is located at the border between Switzerland and Germany, was especially affected as many associates live either in Germany or nearby France. In some cases, colleagues were waiting up to four hours at the border control, putting an additional strain on their daily work regime.

“It was certainly not an easy time at the beginning,” said Timo Zielony, a team coordinator at the Stein facility. “Some people were really concerned at the beginning, as the virus and its health consequences were little understood.”

However, most associates quickly adapted to the new situation, in which teams were split into subgroups and worked in shifts to reduce contagion risk. “Compared to normal operations, it was quite unusual because it’s harder to connect to the whole team. However, under the current circumstances it’s the best possible way to operate," Zielony said.

Similar feedback came from all of the other more than 60 operational sites, where associates were going the extra mile to meet high demand for medicines. At the Italian site in Torre Annunziata, for example, the teams even managed to produce a record output for a vital heart medication – an exceptional feat considering that this European country was one of the most severely affected in the early phase of the coronavirus crisis.

“All of our sites are up and running and are delivering,” said Steffen Lang, Global Head Novartis Technical Operations, during a leadership call with CEO Vas Narasimhan. “What you are all doing is truly outstanding ... This situation requires all of us to work differently, especially at the sites. Based on our teams and the commitment and the passion I am really sure that together we will master this situation. So, please keep up the great work and we will get through this together.”

Posing for a social media post, colleagues in Stein remind people to stay home to better control the coronavirus crisis.

Working from home

That the entire production network of Novartis was able to cope so well with the outbreak was not only due to the company’s strong global emergency network, but also down to the fact that associates already knew how to handle work remotely – an ability that has proved crucial during this crisis.

At the Slovenian site in Menges, Biologics Production leader Vesna Stergar explained that most people were working from home in the biopharmaceuticals plant and were coping well with the situation. “Currently, we are working in shifts and for the whole production only one leader is present at any one time during the day, while one or two process experts are on call. If we need them for an emergency, they come as soon as possible.”

Processes were also running smoothly thanks to plans established before the crisis and to strong commitment and motivation of operators and laboratory analysts who still need to be present at site, Stergar said. “And while we have many Skype meetings these days, working from home is not unusual for us. We were used to doing this once a week before the crisis. This working schedule helped us a lot in the reorganization of working models during this outbreak since it was somehow already in our blood.”

Accelerated culture shift

For Steven Baert, Chief People and Organization Officer, the ability to cope with the unprecedented crisis also showed that the company’s culture change, which was initiated under CEO Vas Narasimhan, was taking hold.

In an interview with Scrip, Baert said the crisis was a test of the Novartis company culture. “It’s been truly inspiring to hear stories of how people are coming together and really stepping up, showing outstanding commitment to their work as they deliver these medicines,” Baert told Scrip. “People are going the extra mile.”

Associates showed the ability to stay curious and inspired even during difficult times and took action on their own initiative amid efforts to make the company less hierarchical and “unbossed.” One such effort included teams in Stein, which built up capacity to help manufacture coronavirus test kits in Switzerland. Likewise, in the United States, at the North Carolina site in Wilson, associates were muscling up to produce millions of doses of a treatment, which was being tested against the coronavirus. And in Stein and other facilities, too, associates were starting to ramp up capacity for other drugs that could help in the fight against the COVID-19 disease.

In an Instagram video story taken on his iPhone, CEO Vas Narasimhan – who like millions of others is adhering to strict regulation in Switzerland and elsewhere and is working mostly from home – thanked associates and healthcare teams around the world. “There are incredible healthcare heroes everywhere I look. I feel grateful for all of you. A big, big thank-you from the bottom of my heart. I wish you all continued health and safety as we overcome this pandemic.”

Associates at the Italian production site in Torre worked hard during the peak of the coronavirus crisis to safeguard drug production.

Full speed

“About two weeks after we resumed production in Beijing, we were able to produce at almost full capacity,” said Ruibin Wang. “People are now used to the situation and know what is expected of them. We can go at full speed now and live up to our mission.”

The task, meanwhile, remains gigantic. In a normal year, Novartis is producing some 70 billion doses of medicines across various indications, including classic pills, biopharmaceutical drugs, gene and nuclear therapies. Meanwhile, the company reaches some 800 million patients worldwide.

Yet, the do-it attitude of Novartis not only remains unbroken – there is a sense of added purpose and pride. “One thing that we’ve learned over the last couple of weeks is the closer we work together the better,” said Amit Nastik, Head NTO Strategy and Operations. “The more we exchange the ideas and best practices we have, the better. Challenges are at the sites. Challenges are in transportation, in logistics, pretty much in every single area that we operate. But there are also solutions.”

Containing COVID-19 to serve patient needs

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