Chasing the Miracles of Science to Improve People's Lives

With over a decade of research experience from pre-clinical to late-phase drug development programs, Paul Rowe is currently responsible for managing and supervising the Global Medical Immunology Franchise at Sanofi. Sanofi’s Immunology franchise is dedicated to chasing the miracles of science to improve the lives of people suffering from chronic inflammatory diseases.  In this role, Dr. Rowe oversees global medical strategy in key areas across medical education, communication, engagement, and late-phase clinical trial data generation activities.

Please tell our readers about your journey in the industry.

I always strived to be a physician who impacted their environment and community locally, and my exposure to pharma helped me recognize that the world is vast and there's an opportunity to influence health globally. To pursue this goal, I started interning at Merck at age 17 before I started my first undergraduate year at Harvard, and then several more times throughout my undergraduate and graduate school experience.

I leaped into the industry very early on, transitioning from the pre-clinical drug development experience I gained at Merck to the other side of the spectrum in the form of late phase research at Boehringer Ingelheim in their clinical development and medical affairs department. I had a mentor at the time who took notice of this experience and my comprehensive background in the industry, so on his recommendation I subsequently pursued an opportunity to gain experience in clinical development as well at Forest Research which truly proved to be invaluable. Subsequently I returned to medical at Daiichi Sankyo and shortly thereafter at Sanofi and soon helped them put together a team in medical affairs for a product that was launching within the next couple of years.

What are the challenges existing in the Drug development process?

At a high level, Sanofi is charting a new course in immunology. Even five years ago, we had virtually no meaningful presence in the field, but we’ve worked tirelessly to transform the understanding of type 2 inflammation, which is what led us to deliver the first ever advanced biologic for both atopic dermatitis and other conditions driven by type 2 inflammation. But we’re not stopping there. We are taking aim at exciting therapeutic targets — sometimes more than one at a time. We are challenging ourselves to set new standards to change the course of chronic inflammatory diseases, from the mildest to the most severe forms. So with a vision like that, there are a multitude of challenges across the board but we’re up for the challenge.

While the drug development process itself has seen many improvements in terms of technology and science, it remains relatively antiquated from a process perspective leading to cycle times that are unacceptable to patients who are waiting. At Sanofi, we continue to adopt the latest technologies that can help make us smarter and faster and we are also changing the way we think about drug discovery and development. Digital tools are enabling us to keep the patient voice front and center. Real-world data from multiple sources is helping us better understand the experiences of patients and the biology of their conditions, which has a direct impact on our clinical trial designs, and, in some cases, the number of patients required for testing our molecules.

Please share some of the technology leveraged by Sanofi to address these challenges.

From a technological perspective, we're coupling AI and other related advances with our ability to execute, harness big data and utilize real-world evidence. We're also trying to investigate diseases from a longitudinal perspective by making significant investments to generate innovative, groundbreaking and promising research. When developing a drug, we use a revolutionary kind of chemistry called tailored covalency that improves efficacy without compromising safety. We’re also utilizing nanobody molecules, which are a type of miniature, engineered antibody that have the potential for more convenient dosing and administration, as well as favorable cost.

How do you envision the near- future in the pharmaceutical space for Sanofi?

At Sanofi, we believe that greater knowledge is what gives us the potential to treat even more diseases, and we're not settling on that front. We have more than 10 next-generation medicines in our pipeline, and we are going beyond type 2 to get inflammation under control. These new medicines have been developed using sophisticated technologies that empower us to rebalance the immune system in new ways. We’re also challenging ourselves to set new standards that change the chronic inflammatory disease paradigm across the board. We take a precision immunology approach, drawing on single-cell analysis, advanced bioimaging, and artificial intelligence to clarify the causes of disease and shine light on new biomarkers and targets. These sophisticated approaches will help us deliver the right medicine, to the right patient, at the right time.

In a broader sense outside of just Sanofi, patient centricity and inclusion have grown across the board, and we can expect that to continue. We’ve transformed our culture to put patients at the heart of everything we do. Today, all our clinical trial designs are informed by patient collaborators. Endpoints that really matter to patients (patient-reported outcomes) are included into nearly all of our clinical trials. We set clear goals for clinical trial diversity to ensure that the efficacy and safety of our novel medicines and vaccines are evaluated inclusively, in hopes that our future healthcare products may benefit all the world’s people without borders or boundaries.