Andrew D. Skibo

Meet Andrew D. Skibo

Passion
“Ensuring that we (both Astra Zeneca/MedImmune specifically, and our biopharmaceutical industry as a whole) have a long range biologics supply capability – this will allow us to deliver the full potential of our promising biologics pipelines.”

Pivotal moment
“Joining Genentech in 1982 at essentially the beginning of the large scale commercialization of recombinant biologics products.”

Change
“I would like to see our industry work with regulatory agency colleagues to find ways to dramatically reducing the cost of developing new drugs – specifically the cost of clinical trials – without sacrificing product safety or affecting patient risks. When I first joined our industry, the average cost of developing a new drug was less than $100 million. Today, it is greater than $1.7 billion. If one includes the cost of progressing eventually unsuccessful drug candidates, the average industry cost of developing a successful new drug is on the order of $7 billion – which is mind-boggling. This limits how many new drugs can practically be developed and is arguably stretching the limits of sustainable cost for our healthcare system.”