Dr. Arthur Taveras, a US pharma executive with 24 years of pharmaceutical drug discovery and CMC development experience, recently joined ChemPartner/ShangPharma as President and CSO. Started in 2002, ChemPartner is one of China’s largest CROs. It was founded by Michael Hui and backed by TPG, one of the largest global private equity firms. It went public in 2010 and was taken private – again by Michael Hui and TPG – in 2013. ChinaBio® Today recently spoke with Dr. Taveras about himself, the company and its goals.

ChinaBio: You are a seasoned western pharma executive. What attracted you to ChemPartner?

Dr. Taveras: I look at this as a real opportunity to be the pharma guy on the inside of a China CRO, where I can lead and connect ChemPartner with the scientific needs of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide.

Here’s a little bit of background on the pharma industry. A little more than ten years ago, the China pharmaceutical support industry began to take off as the US/European industry was collapsing. There have been over 300,000 layoffs in the US, largely due to patent expiries and the cost pressures of doing pharmaceutical research. The growth of the China CRO industry was inversely proportional to the decline in the labs of US/western pharmas.

The global pharma industry had to continue to discover drugs, so they turned to lower-cost providers of individual services. There were a number of CROs that started early on as pharma began contracting for a number of services. Here in China there is tremendous talent. They have the ability to do the work at a cost-efficient price point and to do it quickly. It was an opportunity for the western pharmaceutical industry.

ChemPartner started 11 years ago with 5 people. It now has over 2,000 employees – the current count is 2400 – and it does more than just chemistry. It does all of biology, DMPK, does biologics and of course manufacturing. It has really evolved, and the industry itself has evolved.

I worked with ChemPartner and a number of other CROs in the past. I was very familiar with the level of science here. There is a huge opportunity at ChemPartner: we have tremendous scientists and a company that is different from every other CRO out there. We focus on science, and my goal is to strengthen our partnerships with individual pharmas and biotech companies.  

ChinaBio: How does ChemPartner distinguish itself from other CROs?

Dr. Taveras: ChemPartner has a special phenotype that is unlike any other company. Our people have a true scientific understanding and they can solve problems, which is the best match for what pharmaceutical companies want. The people in our organization truly understand what we mean when we talk about pharmaceutical science and drug discovery and they know how to answer the tough scientific questions.

Most CROs think they understand what pharmas want, but they really don’t. This is the frustration inside of pharma. That’s why I’m glad I’m here: I bridge the gap. I have worked on over 44 drug discovery and development programs and advanced 14 molecules into development and six have gone into people. One is already commercial, and several others will follow. ChemPartner has worked with hundreds of companies over eleven years. It has done thousands of studies with partners in the industry. As a company, ChemPartner is well-recognized as having tremendous pharmaceutical experience, a company that works closely with our partners and contributes to their clinical development pipelines.

ChemPartner will never do drug discovery for its own products. We are not competing with our partners. We never want to jeopardize the partnerships we have with individual pharmas. Everything we do is to support our partners.

ChinaBio: ChemPartner did a large-scale search to fill the position you now hold. Did they pick you because of your experience “on the other side” as a client?

Dr. Taveras: This question goes toward expectations. In some ways, the CRO industry, a support industry for the pharmaceutical industry, has leveled off. A lot of things are now very competitive. In any industry, there is growth early on and then competition and things get equivalent. But there are differences. And it’s important to understand what your strengths are and what your differences are.

So if you have a well-known brand, and your brand is unique, then you have opportunity. Michael Hui, the founder and CEO of ChemPartner, is brilliant and also a visionary. He knew there has to be a new direction for the industry. Not just the company, but the industry. Michael and TPG, his partner on the take-private transaction, wanted pharmaceutical experience because they really want to enhance the scientific understanding that forms true partnerships with the pharmaceutical industry.

This is the only CRO that is led by Western pharmaceutical executives and has tremendous Western leadership coupled with local talent – talent that is very sharp scientifically. It’s really an East-meets-West concept.

ChinaBio: Does the word “partnership” denote a business relationship?

Dr. Taveras: No, in this case, it is a friendship, a trust, an experience. A lot of the companies we work with are huge; they are among the leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide. They all have their own challenges or they don’t have a complete infrastructure after multiple reorganizations in the industry, but they still have to discover medicines for their pipelines. So they look for the right partner.

The right partner is not just having the right equipment. It’s people who understand how to decipher what science is telling us. That’s the true capability. The people and their experience is the real capability. It’s the desire to solve problems that makes a difference. The people in our company want to make a difference.

ChinaBio: ChemPartner/ShangPharma just completed its privatization earlier this year after a relatively short time as a public company. Is there a new direction?

Dr. Taveras: I think the privatization is a good thing. It allows us to get ourselves focused and build in a way we like. Many support companies try to cover all bases. But the reality is that they are not as deep in all areas. I’m not that way. I want to be incredibly deep knowledge-wise at the expense of not being as broad. For this company, I want to be sure that everything we do and say, we must do with incredible depth because that is what pharma is about.

I will get rid of anything that we are not strong in – or I will build it up. And anything that we are tremendously strong in, I am going to leverage it like crazy.

And whether we do or not come out of privatization, who knows? But certainly, ChemPartner is a brand name and people know about us, whether we are private or public.

ChinaBio: Is it still less expensive to do CRO work in China?

It has to be. At first, it was a tremendous cost savings relative to western pharma services. That was the selling point. Over time, it has become even cheaper, maybe because of efficiencies or perhaps competition. For areas where you are expert, the price points are still very good. For pharma, it offers a great opportunity because it is less expensive than doing the work in the US.

For me, cost is only one of the factors. There is nothing like experience. When you have been doing this for as many years as we have, you can do things where cost savings alone don’t necessarily capture the value.

ChinaBio: How do you go about increasing your business?

Dr. Taveras: It’s fairly simple. Pharma goes with people who are experienced and we are experienced. There aren’t too many companies that have our level of experience and can be a true partner, in terms of being in a relationship and being able to understand scientifically. That’s really the answer. It’s not going to be by expansion of broad but thin capabilities. That’s not going to work. It’s going to be a matter of having the strongest scientists from around the world and the strongest understanding of how to do research with pharmaceutical companies. And that’s how we do it.

ChinaBio: Thanks, Art, for taking time to talk with us. Your enthusiasm for your new job and optimism for ChemPartner’s prospects is infectious.