Teva CFS Book English

38 B efore describing the current challenges that characterize the relationship between R&D and production in recent years, it’s important to understand what the strengths of the R&D unit in Kfar Saba are and how they were developed. “I guess we’re doing something right” Recounts Dr. Miki Zaife - one of the founders of the global R&D: “When I started working in R&D at Kfar Saba we were 15 people. When I moved to the HQ in 2000, we were already 200 people. Growth was really quick - in the mid 80s when the joint enterprise with the U.S. began, we hired dozens of researchers and invested a lot of time in training them. We learned while developing. We didn’t have time to learn beforehand. I remember that Ronny Kazan, who was my boss, said: ‘I don't understand what’s going on here, we keep getting one FDA approval after another... I guess we’re doing something right”. In the mid eighties, when the American Congress approved a law pertaining to generics, there were a lot of companies around the world that were bigger and stronger than Teva. How did it happen that such a small and intimate company from Israel become a leader in generics? Sanctifying excellence The special organizational culture that developed in Kfar Saba’s R&D unit plays a significant role. According to Dr. Miki Zaife: “Leadership and excellence go hand in hand. You can’t lead if you don’t excel. Throughout the years, we called this ‘sanctifying excellence’ at R&D”. The R&D unit that was built at Kfar Saba differed from parallel units worldwide: “We groomed creative researchers who were very keen to think big. This wasn’t the case with competitor companies, and we created a work method where a researcher sees a project through from its inception to the end - and in fact there’s no end as long as the drug is manufactured“. The researchers at Kfar Saba understood all the stages in the process - what happens with the raw materials, what happens in the analytical lab tests... And since the researcher saw the project through from beginning to end, he was completely invested in it. A researcher whose project failed, saw it as a personal failure and felt defeated, and when we succeeded it was always a great feeling”. When R&D and Creativity Meet The site in Kfar Saba has set a main goal for itself throughout the years - to be the leading launch site at Teva, by introducing strategic products, to commercial production and marketing from the plant. The plant has lived in harmony for years with the R&D unit, and the mutual cooperation is only getting stronger, but in recent years, globalization has added new challenges to the relationship between R&D and production. Dr. Miki Zaife, one of the founders of Global R&D