It's Phase 3 for biotech CEO
Dunsire makes tough decisions in focusing Millennium's targets
Mark Hollmer
From the Boston Business Journal
One night in late October, Dr. Deborah Dunsire endured a fitful night's sleep.
Dunsire, president and CEO of Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. for just three months, was hours away from announcing more than 100 layoffs. She would also tell employees Millennium was ending its promising research into inflammation and redirecting its discovery budget solely toward the pursuit of new cancer treatments.
"We had to look at great people who have done terrific work that helped Millennium be where it is and (then) say to them, 'Unfortunately you won't be going forward,' " Dunsire said. "That dissonance is what keeps you awake."
Dunsire announced the cutbacks, moving ahead with an aggressive plan to focus the company primarily on cancer drug development and boost sales efforts for its cancer drug Velcade. It's a mandate she assumed over the summer after succeeding founder and longtime CEO Mark Levin, who launched Millennium in 1993 as a gene researcher that licensed technology to third parties and then, through acquisitions, transformed it into a drug developer.
Her first step toward a new focus for the company took place in July, when Dunsire executed a plan negotiated before her arrival for Millennium (Nasdaq: MLNM) to give up co-promotion rights to Schering-Plough Corp. (NYSE: SGP) for Integrilin, a cardiovascular drug the companies co-developed. Many of Millennium's 200 Integrilin sales and marketing jobs subsequently moved to Schering-Plough. That and October's layoffs will bring Millennium's employment down to about 1,100 from last year's 1,500.
Dunsire will be tapping into 17 years of experience with Switzerland's Novartis AG (NYSE: NVS) and its predecessor companies as she hashes out Millennium's long-term commercial plans.
She most recently ran Novartis' North American oncology operations and helped engineer domestic launches of a number of drugs, including the cancer treatment Gleevec in 2001, which has surpassed $1 billion in annual global sales.
Jerry Karabelas, an old boss from that period, said Dunsire is the right executive for the job, even in the wake of the departure of the visionary Levin.
"She's very smart and focused," said Karabelas, a partner with Care Capital LLC in New Jersey and a former head of Novartis' health care division. "She can set and articulate a vision, identify key issues, organize and motivate an organization and direct them to solutions."
Levin, who continues to serve as a Millennium board member, said the company looked at more than 50 candidates over the last three years before identifying Dunsire as a potential new CEO. Dunsire made strong impressions early on, during an initial airport meeting at the Newark Marriott.
"She was passionate right from the beginning about building a company that would make a big difference in people's lives," he said. "And she was focused on building a company for the long term."
Dunsire's job won't be easy. Millennium lost $252.3 million in 2004 even as it reduced red ink and boosted product sales. Losses over the first three quarters of this year hit $154 million, driven in part by restructuring charges left over from the layoff of more than 600 people in 2003 in what also represented a major restructuring and initial narrowing of development focus. Millennium boosted revenue to more than $201.6 million in the third quarter by increasing Velcade sales but also because of one-time revenue sources. Still, clinical trials for three cancer compounds and four inflammation treatments that have made it past the discovery stage are either planned or under way.
The South African-born Dunsire, a former physician who speaks in measured academic language from behind wire-rimmed glasses, said she addresses top decisions by working with and seeking feedback from other executives.
"This business is too complex," she said. "Any person in this type of role who believes they have all the answers and tries to do it alone, I think, is dangerous."
And she tries to be transparent about her intentions. Dunsire, 43, ran six town hall-style meetings at Millennium's headquarters so employees could ask questions about the restructuring. That approach, she said, reflects her overall goals of being quick, honest and clear about her plans.
"I really do believe that when you do something you need to do it well," she said. "And I absolutely believe if we had tried to continue to do both inflammation and oncology we would have at best been mediocre, and then the whole company suffers."
Some congratulated the action as necessary for Millennium to achieve its goal of pro forma operating profitability next year.
"She's doing the right things," said Christopher Raymond, a Chicago-based analyst with Robert W. Baird & Co.
Dunsire, who now lives in Weston, often works 60 to 70 hours per week, but she also takes time for family, taking road trips with her husband and two children or going swimming and doing "the soccer mom thing." Dunsire loves orchids ("They are kind of peaceful," she said) and three grow in her lime-green office. Pictures of her children sit right by her desk, and large modern bookcases display photos from charity events featuring both sides of the political spectrum. At least one includes Dunsire with former President George H.W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush. Another photo features Dunsire with Bush's successor, Bill Clinton, and Sen. Hillary Clinton.
One photo hangs prominently on a side wall: A picture of 50 Gleevec patients celebrating the drug's launch, all of whom survived because of the medicine she helped launch commercially.
"That's the reward, really," she said.
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