07 November 2024

Meet our partners: Ioana Parsons, Ipsen

Paddington Life Sciences works in partnership with leading organisations from a variety of sectors including academic, pharmaceutical, and technology. Here we explore Ipsen – a global biopharmaceutical company who opened its new UK headquarters in Paddington earlier this year.

We speak to Ioana Parsons, General Manager of Ipsen UK and Ireland, who discusses her career journey to date and her outlook on the opportunities and challenges facing the life sciences sector.

Tell us about your career history

My career is made up of two parts so far: the first one was in consulting, which led me to my second one in the pharmaceutical industry. I started out working at two leading consulting firms, initially in Bucharest and then in London. Here, I was working with clients around the world.

In 2016, I moved into a role which supported my transition from consulting to the pharmaceutical industry – strategic planning for a big American Biotech, based in Switzerland. My role covered all of Europe, as well as all the company’s products, allowing me to build an understanding of different markets and also of different therapeutic areas, from cardiology, nephrology and bone health to oncology and haematology.

I had always been interested in trying my hand at running a business and was offered an opportunity in Italy – which was brilliant. I was a sales manager covering the Lazio and Sicily regions. After a year in the field, I was promoted to lead the Oncology-Haematology business unit.

In 2021, I moved to Poland with Ipsen as General Manager and I led the Polish affiliate. During this time, I gained a deep understanding of Ipsen’s business and culture. Ipsen also gave me the opportunity to do a couple of above-country projects, which also helped me understand the company better.  For example, doing an assignment in a global asset lead role for one of our oncology products allowed me to experience a different environment, looking at trends and dynamics around the world.

I enjoyed very much both working in consulting and in industry. I like to believe that I still have the strategic and analytical toolkit, as well as the curiosity, of a management consultant. Applying that to the pharma industry and getting things done together with my teams and over longer periods of time is very rewarding.

What motivated you to take on your current role as General Manager for Ipsen UK & Ireland?

With the recent general election, and a new Government, it is an exciting time for healthcare in the UK. Both the UK and Ireland have complex healthcare landscapes, and I am ready to tackle both the opportunities and the challenges we face. Working together with my colleagues and with our partners, I aspire to ensure the best possible health outcomes for our patients in the UK and Ireland.

I think it is important to welcome new opportunities with an open mind. One can learn something from everything. When first starting in pharma, I loved the idea of doing something meaningful for other people – patients and their families. This is still something that drives me every day because it makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger. I believe that Ipsen as a company is on an exciting journey of delivering sustainable growth. The next phase of our transformation is built on solid foundations.

What is your personal view on the outlook for UK life sciences?

I am pleased with the new Labour Government’s renewed commitment to supporting the UK life sciences sector, with big ambitions for driving growth and implementing reforms that will help improve access to innovation for UK patients. It’s been great to see commitments in important areas such as speeding up regulatory timelines, increasing UK clinical trials, and supporting scientific discoveries that help human health through increased funding and incentivising pension schemes to invest in science and technology firms. We hope this will be a positive step change that will overcome challenges that have been preventing sector growth and investment in the UK in recent years.

However, I believe that if the new Government’s ambitions are to be achieved, the UK needs to recover its position in areas like exports: in 2010, the UK was the fourth highest net exporter of pharmaceutical products globally, but in 2024 it remains only the eighth largest pharmaceutical net exporter in Europe. This must be improved to prevent a continued decrease in inward investment.

Recently, the Labour Government announced up to £520m for a new Life Sciences Innovative Manufacturing Fund in the Autumn Budget, to drive growth and build resilience in the sector. We are proud to be making substantial investments in UK based manufacturing already, so this commitment from the new Government is encouraging to see, and we’ll be monitoring it closely to see how it supports UK based businesses moving forwards.

What are Ipsen’s priorities for the next few years?

At Ipsen, our focus lies in delivering long-term solutions for patients in areas of high unmet need, ensuring they get the care they deserve at the right time. For more than 40 years, Ipsen has been working in the UK to help raise awareness and improve outcomes for patients. I am proud to work in the UK, which we see as an important life sciences destination to improve health outcomes globally. One of Ipsen’s commitments, which I am particularly aligned to, is that we are dedicated to partnering with the Government, the NHS, patient organisations and industry partners to demonstrate the UK’s global leadership in life sciences and improve health, wealth and wellbeing. It was a career highlight for me to participate in the opening of our new UK hub in Paddington earlier this year: one our three Global hubs, alongside Paris, France, and Cambridge, U.S. In Paddington alone, Ipsen employs over 300 people – a step which reaffirms our commitment to contributing to the UK’s life sciences economy.

How have the first six months been in your new UK headquarters in Paddington? 

The first six months in the new UK headquarters in Paddington have been great – it is fantastic to be part of the Paddington life sciences cluster and be in partnership with groups with a shared commitment to the local community in Paddington and beyond. We firmly believe in the UK’s role in life sciences innovation, and we’re committed to continued investment in the UK. and to strengthening our collaborations with key partners across the UK health system. This partnership allows us to do just that: fostering relationships that can drive meaningful progress in healthcare for people in the UK.

What can you tell us about Ipsen’s R&D pipeline?

At Ipsen, we are dedicated to, and continue to invest in, solutions that help people, with a keen focus on quality-of-life outcomes. An important investment for us is in clinical development in some of the most challenging disease areas. We have been working hard to build an attractive pipeline of transformative medicines across our therapeutic areas – oncology, rare disease and neuroscience.

We believe we have a compelling and focused R&D platform, uniting the expertise of more than 700 dedicated colleagues to bring new treatment options to patients around the world. We have added more than 25 new programs to our pipeline since 2020 and invested more than 600M Euro in 2023.

How does Ipsen ensure impactful innovation in healthcare?

We are working to drive earlier access to innovative health solutions through sustainably developing medicines, building strong partnerships and investing in better pathways. We are committed to doing this in three key ways:

• Our bench-to-bedside approach: We believe in driving earlier access to treatments through our UK supply chain – this means that new innovations are developed, manufactured and then used in the UK, which represents a true bench-to-bedside approach.
• Our commitment to societal health: We continuously look at ways to support greater engagement with multiple key partners in the UK health system to accelerate and improve outcomes.
• Our sustainability promise: Our UK footprint is a big consideration for us, and we are committed to, and are proactively, addressing the sustainability of it. Through Generation Ipsen, we are driving positive action across four pillars: Environment; Patients; People; Governance. These pillars are aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

How is Ipsen delivering benefits to the local community?

At Ipsen, we continuously look for ways to support greater engagement with key partners in the UK health system to accelerate and improve outcomes for people. I am particularly passionate about our partnership with Paddington Life Sciences Partners as it ensures we can connect easily with the community in and around Paddington.

We had a really exciting few days at the end of September – our Community Day campaign, activities spread over a couple of days that are part of Generation Ipsen. This is company-wide, so not just in the UK, and is where we are encouraged to take a break from our screens and meetings, and work alongside others both in and outside of our immediate teams, to give back to the local community. I chose to join the GoBoat Canal Clean Up, where we were on board electric GoBoats and used litter pickers to remove as much plastic from the water as possible – in spite of the rain!