Our guest this episode was Vanessa Roknic, Senior Commercial Innovation Executive & Digital Transformation Leader. Vanessa joined Reuben Hall to discuss the intricacies of innovation in the pharmaceutical and digital health sectors.
“If we had done the right kind of quick testing and experimentation right at the beginning, that’s something that we could have found out, stop spending time, stop spending money and moved our resources to something that is going to be more successful both for the company, but also more importantly, the patients.” Vanessa Roknic on failing fast.
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Read Transcript:
Reuben (00:01)
Welcome to the MindSea Podcast series Moving Digital Health. Our guest today is Vanessa Roknick, Senior Commercial Innovation Executive and Digital Transformation Leader. Welcome to the podcast, Vanessa.
Vanessa Roknic (00:15)
Thanks Reuben, nice to meet you.
Reuben (00:17)
Could you tell us a little bit about your background?
Vanessa Roknic (01:34)
Of course. So my background is primarily in front end R&D. Originally I got my bachelor’s of science in medical microbiology and immunology. And while I started off working in a lab, I gradually found myself not feeling really fulfilled or challenged by that type of work. So I actually went on a working holiday visa over in London and fell into pharmaceuticals and just had a passion for it ever since.
I really struggled at first to understand why when I was working in a lab, things would take so long to get from the bench through to the market. And then when I got exposed to pharmaceuticals, I started to see the reasons why with the red tape and the regulations that surround it. And that I think is where the red thread for my career has really taken hold. It’s where I find these pockets of places that just
need to sort of have some way of challenging the status quo and trying to make things, you know, more efficient. And I think that’s what really drew me towards pharmaceuticals and particularly in the clinical trial space. And then it’s only in the recent years that I’ve started moving over into the more commercial side of the business to see how some of the works and the skill sets that I I leveraged in the clinical space can be transferred over into the commercial space and particularly in
innovation and digital transformation.
Reuben (03:07)
And you were at Nova Nordisk for about 10 years in various different roles. Maybe tell us where you started and kind of where your progression went.
Vanessa Roknic (03:18)
Yeah, well, so originally, if you can’t tell, I’m from Sydney, Australia, and that’s where I started with Novo. Back in 2014, I was there and I was working in the clinical trial space and I really, I really loved the company.
I really loved the work and it just so happened that there was some roles available over in the US and they transferred me over here back in 2016 and that was still in the clinical trial space and I really do enjoy that because knowing that you’re at the forefront of research and development with these new drugs that have been, you know, tested in people and, you know, you’re trying to find out whether they’re safe, whether they work.
it’s just it’s really exciting place to be. But I did that for many years and then I think when I came over to the States I was kind of exposed to…
a lot more of the different areas within the pharmaceutical industry. And I really started to try to branch out into different spaces. So while I was still working in the clinical trial area, I was in more of a business performance role, which was looking at data and trying to find insights from the clinical trials we were running and being able to use that data to share insights to our leadership team and allow them to be able to make more informed
decisions that we’re going to benefit the business, benefit our patients and our partners.
Reuben (04:53)
Maybe you could tell us a little bit more about your last role at Novo and what that entailed.
Vanessa Roknic (04:59)
Yeah, so more recently, once I was working in the clinical trial space and I was lucky enough to get a new role, which was in leading a new team for the organization. And it was what we called APIS Labs at the time. And it was actually driven by the executive office. They looked at how we were innovating, you know, I think it was back in 2018. And they just really thought that we could be doing it in a different way and a more accelerated way. And so they
did a current analysis of what the organization looked like at that time. What was probably a more organic next step and that was the lab. And we were in essence an internal incubator. And my role for that lab was to oversee the operations of it to sort of own the framework that we were using to drive the strategy forward. And so we had one of the interesting things that I really loved about the team is that we were product agnostic.
we weren’t there just to sell more product in the market. We were there to really understand what were the true pain points of our customers. And when we say customers, it could be patients, could be doctors, it could be payers, anyone that’s within that health care, the US healthcare ecosystem that’s having a pain point and really figure out how we can solve their problems that they were experiencing whilst creating a shared value for the business. Because obviously at the end of the day,
we are a business, we need to make money, but how do we do that while still keeping our customers at the forefront of what we were doing and what they’re experiencing? So that was really exciting. We had three experimentation teams that were working on different strategic focus areas at the time. And it was using combined methodologies like Agile, Lean, Design Thinking, all those sort of fun things that you’re hearing a lot more about now.
were just trying to pioneer this new way of working. We had no idea whether it was going to work and obviously there was a lot of bumps along the way but I think towards the end there we really were a high performing and high functioning team. So it was quite a journey to be a part of and to help drive for the organization.
Reuben (07:18)
For sure, innovating within a large organization can be very difficult. What type of frameworks were you using to make that possible?
Vanessa Roknic (07:29)
Yeah, well, I mentioned briefly those, those methodologies, but that’s not normally the thing in my opinion, that slows things down. It’s just the, the sheer size of an organization. When you’re talking about these big pharma companies, know, thousands of people, that’s like a huge machine to get moving. You’ve got a highly regulated space, you know, like pharmaceuticals, and I’m sure you experienced similar sort of red tape, sort of, you know, inhibitions, not inhibitions, that’s
not the right word, you experience a lot of regulation challenges, red tape and sort of barriers to innovation. And so what we did
on top of having a framework and a remit that we adhere to, we actually engaged with a lot of our regulatory partners, internal regulatory partners I’m talking about. we had every other week we’d bring together a group of people that included privacy experts, data privacy experts, ethics, compliance, safety, all these, all these.
really sort of high risk areas and we wanted to bring them in as early as possible and as transparently as possible so they could help us along the way build towards what we needed to build towards.
The reason why that’s important because a lot of the time because people see those areas as maybe barriers to innovation or barriers to progress, they don’t engage those partners until towards the end when they’ve got something that they really love but then it’s not going to be feasible in the market.
Reuben (09:09)
room.
Yeah, let’s build the product first and then worry about passing the regulations later, right?
Vanessa Roknic (09:19)
Exactly, exactly. And while it might seem like the right mentality to have around innovation because you have to be breaking down barriers.
there’s so much more you can do and do more constructively as well when you’re working with those people. for example, this was not something that we were working on, but if you, actually let’s look at something that people are probably familiar with, of glasses. People were looking at a lot of glasses that can have cameras in them and the issues with things like that in healthcare is,
compliance with privacy requirements. if you, if you have the potential to record someone else’s face, that face is considered private information. So you can’t share, you can’t share that. You can’t store that electronically. And so things like voices as well, that’s in some places considered personal identifiable information. So you can’t, you can’t record that either. If you’re, if your glasses, you’re walking with your glasses on and you’re recording,
addressed, that’s personal identifiable information. So you have to be aware of all those things that could be an issue down the line. And there are ways, it doesn’t mean that you can’t, for example, have the glasses, it just means that you might have to have some steps in place to prevent those kinds of things from happening. And the sooner you start making plans for that and designing features, so you achieve those goals, the less of a burden it’s going to be at the end when you’re just trying to get it on the, you know, get it out there in the market.
kit.
Reuben (10:58)
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It reminds me of Google Street View when you go in and they have the faces and certain things blurred out to avoid identifying individuals and using similar solutions to record the things that you wanted to record but obfuscate or remove the things that you’re not allowed to record.
Vanessa Roknic (11:26)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Reuben (11:31)
So you’re a big proponent of failing fast. Can you tell us about some of the projects you’ve been part of that did fail?
Vanessa Roknic (11:42)
Yeah. I mean, I can definitely talk about the way that we define failing fast. And so I think you hear a lot of the time about failing fast, failing early and failing often. The reason being is…
If you, we just talked about a good example then with like maybe glasses or a product that you get all the way to the end and then you find out that it’s completely unfeasible within the market that you’re in. If we had done the right kind of quick testing and experimentation right at the beginning, that’s something that we could have found out, stop spending time, stop spending money and moved our resources to something that is going to be more successful both for the company, but also more importantly, the patients.
And so that’s the real reason why that’s important from a business sense. But when you’re talking about from an innovation perspective.
There’s so much happening. There’s so much changing all the time that you need to move fast in order to keep up with it. You you can think of all those graphs that they show where where technology is like moving exponentially or progressing exponentially. And so that’s the kind of pressure that you’re under with innovation. It’s not about trying to come up with the next shiny toy. It’s about how things are just constantly changing and how can we leverage some of those things to to benefit the patients in the pain points that
they’re experiencing. So one of the best examples that I have in regards to, you know, failing fast and failing often is this concept of, was it 3D glasses, 3D goggles, whatever you want to call them. And people trying to find ways to use them for Alzheimer’s or something like that. And
It sounds great in theory, it sounds great from the science, it can do all these really good things. But when you ask patients whether they’re willing to wear something like that, the answer will be no. And it’s been historically like that. And so I think that’s…
where we would go to first is the patient or the customer, what their problems are, and really understand what their needs are in order to move forward. If we’d find something that we thought was good and we believed in it, we’d go back and test it with the patient. If they liked it, we would continue. If they didn’t, we would probably just move it to the side.
So that’s how we would work with failing fast and failing often. We had a lot of projects that wouldn’t even get past the first phase of our research because we realized that it wasn’t a desire for the patient, even though the business was asking for it. When we’d go and test it with people, it would be, they’re just not interested. So I think sometimes that would be my message to your listeners out there is to really challenge yourself
about whether what you’re chasing that product at the end of the funnel is what your customers wants or whether it’s what you want as a business.
Reuben (15:28)
Mm -hmm. Yeah, you see it so often when people are jumping to solutions and they say, I have this great technology solution, this great application for a new technology, and it’s going to be perfect to change at XYZ. And they have that really clear vision in their head, and they just want to build that vision. But they haven’t.
gone back to the end user, whether it’s a patient or a clinician, to validate that hypothesis with them. You can spend a lot of time and lot of energy building the wrong thing, building a solution that doesn’t have that fit, that doesn’t solve the user’s needs. So we’re a big proponent of human -centered design.
and rapid prototyping to make sure the end user is always involved with the product development, not just at the beginning, but throughout the different phases.
Vanessa Roknic (16:35)
Hmm.
Yeah, I think that’s that’s one of the challenges when you look at a typical operation of these large, large organisations like pharmaceutical companies. They’re very much more used to the typical way of working, which is, you know, waterfall project management, you deliver the final product, and then you go take it to the market. Whereas what you were just talking about, and what we were working that sort of confines that our team were working within was, it’s a it’s that design thinking, it’s the
agile sort of iterative steps. So working on those small pieces, getting feedback, and then continuing to build and not just build that one thing and then hope that they like it at the end. So that’s how I think we were able to sort of challenge some of those barriers that you would normally see within a large organization like that.
Reuben (17:32)
Yeah, I think some people have this misconception of entrepreneurship that, you know, it is the great visionary like, you know, Steve Jobs, you know, people, people don’t know what they want until you until you give it to them and then they see what they want. Well, that’s great. But what’s the smallest, fastest thing we can build to put in front of people?
Vanessa Roknic (17:51)
Yeah.
Reuben (17:59)
to let them try it out and see if it works or not. Let’s not spend 12 months building that vision. Let’s build the smallest piece of that we can to test it and then continually test it out.
Vanessa Roknic (18:03)
Yeah.
Yeah and I think like I’ve used similar examples sometimes there’s that I’m not gonna I’m not gonna do it justice but the whole that whole sort of story around well people didn’t know they wanted a car until the car came along but people did know that they didn’t want to keep shoveling horse poo people did know that they wanted a faster horse like people did know that they didn’t want a horse that they had to continually feed and so
What I imagine, what I’m imagining in my mind is the person who invented the car was not just going, I’m, I’ve just come up with this idea for four wheels and blah, blah, blah. It’s like, I, there’s these pain points that people are experiencing with having a horse and buggy.
So how are we going to address those? And I guarantee you they went out there and sort of figured out what was the actual pain points and gradually were able to move things forward. Similarly to the iPhone, I’m sure they didn’t develop that in a vacuum. I’m sure they were going out there with some of the features that they have and testing them before they released the first one.
But I agree that people maybe can’t sort of visualize what it is that they need, but they know what they want.
Reuben (19:34)
Yes, and you mentioned the word pain points. I mean, that’s it, right? Like they want those pain points removed from their life. You know, whether it’s a symptom they’re dealing with, with a condition, an illness, you know, they want to get past that. Whether it’s you know, technological hurdle.
where they’re doing administration and they have to do the same 10 steps every time and they know they’re wasting their time and they know there’s a better way to manage this solution. It’s all about removing that pain.
Vanessa Roknic (20:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Reuben (20:15)
So how many different projects do you think were going on at one time within the lab?
Vanessa Roknic (20:23)
Yeah. Well, so our lab.
I’ve mentioned before, we were about working very quickly iteratively. And so at any given time, we would try to be encouraging the teams to be working on four to six opportunities at a given time. And so for example, each pain point or problem statement of a customer was an opportunity. But each of those opportunities could, in theory, land you multiple solutions because they might not
be just one solution for multiple, for a problem there might be multiple solutions and we’d want to go out and test all of them.
But at the end of the year, our goal was to have around about 10 to 15 opportunities that we’ve worked on. I hope that one of those might make it through to the end of the funnel and be a successful solution that we could then use for the business or in the market. so it was all about, we put those goals, those sort of objectives to the team as sort of a target for them to aim towards, a way to encourage
them to move more quickly in the way that we needed them to because it’s so easy to think well I’ve just got this one project I’ve just got to really make sure that’s successful and we were trying to get past that idea that this is your baby this is something that you have to make successful it’s like no this is one project this might not be the most successful one that’s going to come out of your team so let’s make sure that you’re hedging your bets and you’re working across a breadth of opportunities rather than just that that one.
Reuben (22:00)
Yeah, don’t get too emotionally attached because we have to make some tough decisions about what goes on and what doesn’t. How did you involve academic researchers and academic institutions in that process?
Vanessa Roknic (22:17)
Yeah, so one of the barriers that we found or the challenges I would say is that
our team, because we were very small, we were about five people and we did move quickly, a lot of the time we had to be creative with how we worked more quickly. And so we were getting approached a lot by different academic institutes to see if we would sponsor maybe a capstone project or something similar. And we just, in the end, we started with one, I think it was the University of Washington.
And we just had a really good experience with them. And so started branching out into into other academic partnerships with one of my colleagues. He was the one that was leading, leading that work and.
It was just such, I mean, it was great from multiple angles. One, you’re at the forefront of technology, academia, they’re at the forefront of new technologies coming out, they’re developing in it. So it was really great to just listen and learn from them. You’re also getting students who have different perspectives than maybe someone who’s been a little bit jaded by the pharmaceutical industry. So they’re coming in fresh, fresh bright eyes. They don’t have the expertise.
Reuben (23:29)
Ha ha ha ha.
Vanessa Roknic (23:36)
bias that about what can and can’t be done. And, and so it was just a really great way for us to get not only I talked about the forefront of technology, but also this different kind of perspective. And then the last thing was just enabling us to move quickly they with the work that they would do on some of the concepts that we would provide them and deliver a tangible prototype.
Reuben (23:40)
Yeah.
Vanessa Roknic (24:03)
it was just, it was more than what we could have done in that time. And it was also just a lot different because of the different perspectives that they had. And so it was, that was really, when I look back, I think that was a great way for us to move more quickly in that we could focus on other things while they would then build the prototypes that we were looking to build. it was,
They would, it was just a really great experience from our side, I hope for theirs as well. But I do encourage, know, even for like, you know, future sort of lines is another angle that we would come at it from if there was an opportunity for them to be brought into the business as well, that would be even better. Because then you’re getting all these people with what I just talked about that they know about these upcoming technologies, they have these different perspectives,
life experiences that they can bring to the table that maybe our team just didn’t have.
Reuben (25:07)
Can you tell us about any of the other successful partnerships or projects that came out of the labs?
Vanessa Roknic (25:15)
I mean, there was a lot of partnerships because I think in innovation, you’re successful when you work with others. Innovation is not done in a silo. You need to collaborate because the skills that I have, the skills that our team has is not going to be the same as another team. So, for example, we had an internal team who were really great at scouting. And so we would leverage them if we ever needed a landscape analysis on a particular solution that we were thinking about.
they will go off and do some research in that space. So it’s like internal partnerships are critical.
But then also externally, yes, we did have a lot of different partnerships, you know, with the academic institutes that I just mentioned, but there was also some of in Boston, we were members of an organization called Farmstars, which is all about bridging the gap between big farm, the communication gap between big pharma and smaller enterprises that have a good solution to offer, but are struggling to sort of get it.
in there. So it’s teaching them about how do you, how does pharmaceuticals works, how does the industry work, how do you speak to the big executives, what are they going to be most interested in looking for. And so that was that was a really great experience, a really great partnership to be involved with.
Reuben (26:47)
Yeah, I’m sure like some of the projects you might not be allowed to talk about just because it’s, know, innovation in progress. But even in a generic way, are there any like product success stories where, you know, you were working on an innovation team that, you know, got out of that beta stage and into a live production environment and you got to see the impact on patients or clinicians and the
of that solution.
Vanessa Roknic (27:18)
Yeah, there was some one proof of concept that we worked on and the reason why I’m bringing it up because it was the first successful one that we had as a team. So it’s always like a very fond memory for me. But it was basically a predictive algorithm that we were working on in order to understand the risk of a patient that was presenting with certain symptoms of developing these adverse long -term health outcomes. So for someone living with
type 2 diabetes, what’s the risk of them at some point in their lifetime getting lower extremity amputations. And so we were working on that kind of model and it was actually just for our team at first. We were just seeing if it was something that we could predict and
But then through collaboration and trying to get feedback on it from our medical affairs partners, they actually really liked the tool and wanted it to be brought into a larger tool that they were developing. So we ended up handing off the algorithm. Actually, at first we were working with other teams. So we have these great data scientists that work within Novo. They were helping us build it and also data engineers as well. And eventually,
we were able to hand it off to medical affairs and it’s being used with them, engaging with their, through their medical liaisons with our healthcare professionals in the market. So that is something that I’m super proud of that we were able to deliver for the organisation and is actually delivering value for the relationship between the medical liaisons and the HCPs.
Reuben (29:09)
It’s always really rewarding to see a project go live in healthcare because sometimes it just takes so long. Like you said, the development process and ensuring that all the privacy and security is in place. And those are all very important to make sure the regulations are there.
Vanessa Roknic (29:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Reuben (29:36)
So when finally something is live and you see it out in the wild and it’s making an impact, yeah, must be a very proud moment.
Vanessa Roknic (29:46)
And I think what’s important to, I think, clarify with that is it wasn’t a one and done. When they released it and were testing it in the market,
They, was just on one therapeutic area and it was, you know, just trying to get feedback on whether it was useful or not. And, and now they’re looking to expand it into other therapeutic areas. So I think that’s, that’s also an important point to make is that you don’t, don’t need to boil the ocean. When you’re coming up with these ideas, you can start with something very small, just to test it out first and see whether it brings a value that you think it could. And that’s when you start expanding it. So you’re not investing like we were talking about before all this time.
effort and money into something that may not do exactly what you think it will do. And I was kind of alluding to this before, know…
Generally not just in pharmaceuticals and but across industries when you’re innovating properly You’d be expecting 90 % of what you’re working on to be failing if you’re doing it properly And so that’s why the volume and velocity is super important because if I was only working on one project a year There’s a 90 % chance that that project will fail so that’s why you need to kind of hedge your bets and and and work on more so that it’s kind of I like
to think of it from, I guess, my clinical trial days, when you think about you start with thousands of different molecules. And, you know, not all of those molecules make it to lab the lab bench, not all those molecules make it to pre clinical trials in animal studies, not all of those molecules make it to pre clinical and then clinical studies, you’re, you’re getting this big drop off along the way until at very end of the funnel, you get that
one product that’s going to make it to market that one molecule. And by that time, that’s probably like 15 years and billions of two point, I think the last time I looked at the metric, was two point one billion dollars that you spend on one molecule making it to the market. That’s just because you’re starting with so many, you’re spending so much money and time working on those, those, those thousands of molecules and eventually getting it down to the one.
Reuben (31:52)
Wow.
Vanessa Roknic (32:01)
and people don’t see that. And it’s the same with innovation. You need to sort of start really wide, cast a really wide net, and then gradually you get to that one opportunity that is going to be successful.
Reuben (32:16)
Yeah, it would be crazy to just have one molecule and expect that one to be successful and going through all the stages. And it goes to the point of failing fast as well. The less time you can spend on the things that aren’t gonna work gives you more time to spend on the things that are gonna work.
Vanessa Roknic (32:26)
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Reuben (32:43)
So what are some of the opportunities or innovations you’re most excited for in digital health?
Vanessa Roknic (32:50)
I like this is a bit of a cliche, I’m definitely, and I always do try to caveat with the, don’t be enamored by the shiny object, but I do really think there is going to be a lot of promise with AI. And, you know, even if it’s not for…
customers or patients, I’m super excited about what it can mean for the productivity within a company in terms of one thing that I found super helpful is the transcription of minutes from meetings. So like little things like that, I think I’m super excited about what that can mean for companies and customers.
And so that’s something that, mean, like I say, it’s cliche, but that’s one of the things that I’m, that I’m really excited to see the progression of. I, I try not to focus too much on just the tools themselves. What I try to encourage people is to think about the pain points because you, know, I mean, a lot of the, a lot of the innovation that we’re talking about is going to be in digital, but there’s always those customers that just are not going to have access to it. When you think about, technology deserts, internet.
deserts, just the rural locations where people live and just having access to physical locations. There’s just so many other limitations that are going to prevent digital from being a solution for them. So that’s where I think we need to start being more creative and going beyond just the digital and trying to think about innovations. just as an example, we talk about in terms of relationships, policies,
structural changes in a company, things like that. So, try not to limit myself to only those kind of perspectives.
Reuben (34:46)
Yeah, I 100 % agree. You know, AI is a huge opportunity and will be ongoing for the future for improvement of healthcare. I do feel like a bit of a broken record sometimes, be Like, well, yeah, of course, like we’ve been talking about this for a while, but it is ongoing and it’s interesting to see the…
the new use cases or the new applications of AI in different specific fields. But we can’t forget about, there are other ways to innovate beyond just AI and technology solutions. Like you said, there’s multiple things that need to be explored to solve those pain points. It’s not always technology.
Vanessa Roknic (35:41)
Yeah.
Reuben (35:41)
Technology is great, AI is great, but it’s not the only way to solve problems.
Vanessa Roknic (35:46)
Yeah, my boss used to say about, you know, could be low touch, high tech, high tech.
or sorry, high touch, low tech. So it could be either one of those combinations. And that’s the way I like to think of it. It’s always the option. And yes, there certainly are ways to use digital and technology to make life easier, but let’s not just automatically put our bias on towards that. it could be, you know, it could be AI and a new policy or it’s just maybe not as sexy to say it that way, but
It’s definitely an option.
Reuben (36:28)
Yeah, and how about yourself? Like what’s the next step for your career? Where do you see that going?
Vanessa Roknic (36:34)
That’s a good question. I am very passionate about innovation, I feel like that’s a bit of a, know, innovation can mean so many different things to different people and it’s more, I feel like it’s overused at the moment. I’m passionate about helping people that feel like they just can’t figure out their way around a wicked problem and trying to help them navigate that.
I think what I’ve learned throughout my career is you just need to keep things moving forward in any way you can. Like a little bit of momentum is better than none. So as long as you’re moving in the direction that you think you should be moving, whether it’s like a millimeter or whatever.
I think that’s what I love helping people figure out is realizing that they can achieve what they think is unachievable. And so that’s what I’m looking for in my next role is to, you know, still that innovation theme, but it can be, I mean, it can really be anywhere, right? It’s not just healthcare, it’s not just pharmaceuticals where that type of change is needed, but definitely prevalent.
you
Reuben (37:50)
Yeah, there are no shortage of problems to solve out there. So I’m sure you will find one to dig your teeth into and help solve it. It was great to hear your perspective and some of your experiences and share your knowledge today. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
Vanessa Roknic (38:09)
Thank you.
Reuben (38:11)
And thanks to everyone listening. If you enjoyed the Moving Digital Health podcast, please go to movingdigitalhealth.com to subscribe to the MindSea newsletter and be notified about future episodes.
