{"393391":{"#nid":"393391","#data":{"type":"news","title":"UCB\u2019s C-Suite Pays a Visit","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIt isn\u2019t every day that the entire C-Suite of a major multinational biopharmaceutical company comes to visit, all at once. But that\u2019s what happened March 24, 2015 when the UCB Executive Committee Meeting came to the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EUCB\u2019s senior executives from corporate headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, and U.S. headquarters in Smyrna, Georgia met with leadership from the Georgia Institute of Technology\u2019s bio community, further solidifying the partnership between the pharmaceutical company and one of the nation\u2019s leading research institutions. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe Suddath Room was packed with a lot of people that have the word \u201cchief\u201d in their title, including UCB\u2019s CEO, Jean-Christophe Tellier, as well as Chief Operating Officer Mark McDade, Chief Medical Officer Iris Lowe-Friedrich, Chief Scientific Officer Ismail Kola, Chief Marketing Officer Bharat Tewarie, and Chief Financial Officer Detlef Thielgen, as well as other members of the UCB leadership team.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cTo have the whole executive team come in so that we can show what we do here at Georgia Tech \u2013 well, opportunities like this don\u2019t happen frequently enough,\u201d said Cross, executive vice president of research for Georgia Tech. \u201cMy hope is that companies like UCB will think about Georgia Tech as sort of the Bell Labs for an industry sector. There\u2019s a lot we can do to support companies like this.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe rare opportunity to meet face to face with UCB\u2019s leadership was the direct result of the first UCB-Georgia Tech Day, which happened in November 2014, when a group of Georgia Tech students visited the company\u2019s Smyrna facility. That was an event organized by Cynthia Sundell, director of life science industry collaborations for the Petit Institute, and Bruce Lavin, vice president of North American medical affairs for UCB. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cPositive feedback from that interaction led the UCB team to want to visit Georgia Tech and learn more about our collaborative environment and the interdisciplinary research of our faculty and students,\u201d Bob Guldberg, executive director of the Petit Institute, who told the gathered executives, \u201cIt\u2019s one thing to go out and sing the praises of Georgia Tech and tell you how great our programs are. It\u2019s another thing to be able to show that to you. You are sitting in a building that is not restricted by any disciplinary or departmental boundaries.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat concept of research without boundaries was particularly interesting to Tellier, who sees the wide-angled, interdisciplinary approach as a key to his company\u2019s success in meeting the needs of patients.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cI really think that success in the future is linked more and more with the ability to create space and platforms where people from different backgrounds, different expertise, different environments can work towards common goals,\u201d said Tellier.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EGuldberg addressed some of what Georgia Tech is doing to lead the future of bioresearch, including the nearly completed Engineered Biosystems Building (EBB), \u201cwhich represents an investment of over $300 million in biotechnology,\u201d he said. \u201cBut still, our best selling product is our students. That\u2019s the reason I came here to Georgia Tech back in 1996.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBoth Guldberg and Ravi Bellamkonda, chairman of the Coulter Department, touted the strength of the student body, a talented resource pool UCB is very aware of (the company is offering a couple of internships for Georgia Tech students this summer).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EUCB, founded in 1928 in Belgium, has carved out a significant niche in the industry, serving patients by developing and marketing therapeutics in two main focus areas \u2013 central nervous system and immunology. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThis is a company that spends more of its revenues (the company earns about $4.2 billion in annual sales) on research and development, on a percentage basis, than almost every other pharmaceutical company \u2013 25 to 27 percent, versus an industry average of about 17 percent. And now UCB and Georgia Tech are exploring ways in which to grow their collaboration, which seems like a natural partnership to Bruce Lavin, UCB\u2019s head of medical neurology, based at the company\u2019s Smyrna campus.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u201cThis is a wonderful opportunity for UCB to work together with one of the nation\u0027s, in fact, one of the world\u2019s top technological research universities,\u201d Lavin said. \u201cTo have these resources only 15 minutes away from us is fantastic. We share a similar perspective. UCB is all about, \u0027what can we do to bring value to the patient.\u2019 Similarly, Georgia Tech, through innovation and technology, wants to enhance the wellbeing of patients. We share a lot in common.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ECONTACT\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Pharma company executive leadership meets at Petit Institute"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EPharma company executive leadership meets at Petit Institute\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Pharma company executive leadership meets at Petit Institute"}],"uid":"28153","created_gmt":"2015-04-02 23:47:21","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:17:58","author":"Jerry Grillo","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-04-02T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-04-02T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"393381":{"id":"393381","type":"image","title":"Steve Cross - UCB visit","body":null,"created":"1449246332","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:25:32","changed":"1475895110","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:50","alt":"Steve Cross - UCB visit","file":{"fid":"75604","name":"steve_cross_2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/steve_cross_2.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/steve_cross_2.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":765077,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/steve_cross_2.jpg?itok=f8uhDi1g"}},"393361":{"id":"393361","type":"image","title":"UCB Tellier","body":null,"created":"1449246332","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:25:32","changed":"1475895110","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:50","alt":"UCB Tellier","file":{"fid":"75602","name":"jean_christophe.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/jean_christophe.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/jean_christophe.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1243866,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/jean_christophe.jpg?itok=YxIZl_3e"}},"393371":{"id":"393371","type":"image","title":"UCB-Ravi","body":null,"created":"1449246332","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 16:25:32","changed":"1475895110","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:51:50","alt":"UCB-Ravi","file":{"fid":"75603","name":"ravi_talks.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ravi_talks.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/ravi_talks.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":472799,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/ravi_talks.jpg?itok=XRkEUj1b"}}},"media_ids":["393381","393361","393371"],"groups":[{"id":"1292","name":"Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/node\/jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EJerry Grillo\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications Officer II\u003Cbr \/\u003EParker H. Petit Institute for\u003Cbr \/\u003EBioengineering and Bioscience\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jerry.grillo@ibb.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}