Wang Lei, | cargo column: from tour guide to AstraZeneca China leader

The Paper's reporter Li Xiaoxiao

【Editor's Note】

The Chronicle of Cargo Colonization is the earliest historical work dedicated to the outstanding figures engaged in "cargo farming" (commercial) activities, and the economic ideas and commercial wisdom of the people expounded by Sima Qian are praised as "historical thought and economics, and the book cover is a pioneering work".

A new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is reshaping the world economic structure and reconstructing the global innovation map. In this great change, the stories of all entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs and workers who dare to innovate and take responsibility deserve to be remembered. From now on, we will launch the "Surging Financial People Weekly Magazine " Cargo Colony Biography" to tell the story of business people in the tide of the era of globalization.

They have made a biography for the times, and we have made a biography for them.

Lei Wang, Executive Vice President of AstraZeneca Worldwide and President of International Business and China

"What everyone ignores is that from 2001 to 2014, I have not risen to the first level, and many people care about your success, not when you are at a low point."

In the early summer of May, in the office on the fifth floor of AstraZeneca China Headquarters in Shanghai, Wang Lei, executive vice president of AstraZeneca's global business and president of international business and China, sat in front of the camera of the surging news (www.thepaper.cn), adjusting his sitting posture while laughing and telling reporters about his experience and feelings of "four consecutive upgrades".

Wang Lei is not low-key in the pharmaceutical circle, in late April alone, he appeared at two large-scale public events at the Boao Forum for Asia and the Wuxi 2021 Taihu Bay Life and Health Future Conference, he is happy to share his thoughts on the industry, but his experience has rarely been mentioned in recent years.

Wang Lei is quite legendary in the pharmaceutical circle: just graduated from college as a tour guide for three years, "a dozen times a year in Huangshan", "a year may have to meet thousands of different people", and later in the case of no pharmaceutical professional background, he switched to medicine and achieved such results, especially in 2013, he entered AstraZeneca China's "four consecutive promotions of four levels", becoming one of the very few local talents who entered the global management of multinational pharmaceutical companies, and also refreshed the highest position of local talents in multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Since joining roche pharmaceuticals as an assistant general manager in 1996, Wang Lei has been in the pharmaceutical industry for 25 years, and 2021 is his eighth year at AstraZeneca.

In the past eight years, in China's pharmaceutical industry, from the adjustment of the structure of the drug regulatory department many times, to the implementation and normalization of policies such as collection and procurement, medical insurance negotiations, etc., it can be described as a storm; in AstraZeneca China, the past eight years have developed rapidly. According to the 2020 financial report, AstraZeneca China revenue was $5.375 billion, accounting for 20.2% of its global revenue, close to the US market. When more and more multinational pharmaceutical companies express their importance to the Chinese market, AstraZeneca China's sales revenue and global contribution have ranked first.

Yu Wang Lei, who has devoted himself to the pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years, has witnessed and participated in the ups and downs of development, and in the past eight years, he has made a name for himself in the pharmaceutical industry with solid performance. Next, where will this legendary local medical talent lead AstraZeneca China? This is a question that Wang Lei has often been asked recently.

In this interview, Wang Lei told the surging news reporter that he hopes to change the stereotype of others on the pharmaceutical industry, no longer think that "our pharmaceutical industry is selling drugs, just to sell drugs to patients, no matter what the patient's results are", hoping to make the entire industry become patient-centric, which is what he and AstraZeneca want to do.

"Tickets"

Although cross-border cases are not uncommon, the version of the story is usually people with medical professional backgrounds who abandon medicine and engage in business, and Wang Lei's special feature is that he was once a tour guide, a job that has nothing to do with medicine.

In 1972, Wang Lei was born in Shanghai, after graduating from Shanghai Overseas Chinese University at the age of 21, his first job as a foreign language major was a tour guide, the main work content was to lead foreign guests to travel through domestic scenic spots, footprints all over the country, it seems to be sightseeing in the mountains, in fact, "get up early and greedy, the sky is dark, you have to go out to help guests manage their luggage", "climb Huangshan mountain with seven or eight bags, do three years as a tour guide, more than a dozen times a year on Huangshan Mountain." ”

Now talking about the three years of tour guide experience, Wang Lei is more rewarding in addition to hard work, and has suggested that newly working graduates may wish to try to be a tour guide for one or two years: a year may have to meet thousands of different people, not only can communicate with foreign guests, improve foreign language proficiency and explanation level, but also exercise the ability to deal with people.

In 1996, Wang Lei, who was considering changing jobs, submitted his resume to Roche Pharmaceutical China three times, "living and dying into this industry". The reason behind it is not complicated, one Wang Lei is a liberal arts student, but he is interested in chemistry, and the other is a person who has not yet done medicine at home, and he can help himself or his family in this line.

At that time, Shanghai Roche Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. had just been established for two years, but from a global perspective, Roche Pharmaceutical was already a world-renowned century-old pharmaceutical company. Because of the problem of professional background, Wang Lei's first two resumes were all in the sea, "there was no opportunity for an interview", the third assistant general manager belonged to the administrative position, the foreign language major and the affinity of the tour guide, and finally let him seize the "last opportunity".

Although the assistant is not the core of the pharmaceutical company, it has become a ticket for Wang Lei to enter the pharmaceutical industry, and there is an episode about the computer when he gets this ticket.

At that time, the interviewer asked Wang Lei "whether he would use the computer, whether he knew the Windows office", this question once made him very desperate: "After graduating from college, I was a tour guide for three years, the computer had not been seen, at that time the school's computers seemed to be locked in a very mysterious room in the school, everyone could not go, and what they knew was the DOS system, not the Windows system." ”

"I am a desperate person who is desperate, but I can still remain optimistic in despair." After confirming that there was no computer in the office at the time, Wang Lei's answer to the interviewer was "I will", and the next question followed: he was going to join the company the next day, and he needed to learn this skill immediately.

"At that time, the company was in Xujiahui, when I crossed the road, I happened to see the Donghai Computer Factory, so I went to the store department to buy a 386 machine, and then immediately notified my computer-studying friends to live at home overnight, helping me learn how to turn on, shut down, operate Windows and office."

At that time, a 386 offered 13,000 yuan, and Wang Lei rejoiced: "Fortunately, I made some money as a tour guide." ”

target

"Since my first day in the industry in 1996, I have aimed to be the president of a multinational pharmaceutical company in China." Wang Lei never hid his ambitions in his career, and eventually people saw that he exceeded this career goal.

Wang Lei worked at Roche Pharmaceuticals for 16 years until he left in 2013. During this period. He worked in multiple departments such as manpower, R&D, and marketing from assistant general manager to marketing, and before leaving, he was involved in the marketing department of almost all Roche products.

After taking over the olive branch of AstraZeneca China in 2013, Wang Lei was promoted from Vice President of Respiratory, Digestive and Anesthesia Business Unit to Vice President of AstraZeneca Global Executive Vice President of International Business and President of China, with overall responsibility for the overall business in China, Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Brazil, Russia, Eurasia, the Middle East and Africa.

Before Wang Lei, most of the Chinese professional managers of multinational pharmaceutical companies were supporting roles, and the industry was surprised that this Chinese with no returnee background, not a medical major, no doctorate, and even from a front-line medical representative Chinese, why he could stand out from multinational pharmaceutical companies, and it only took four years.

Such a contrasting promotion has made Wang Lei a celebrity in the medical circle, behind which is a solid performance.

Respiratory products have always been a blockbuster product of AstraZeneca, and the momentum of development is very good. After Serving as Vice President of the Respiratory, Digestive and Anesthesia Business Unit, Wang Lei began to lay atomization centers in hospitals across the country, including grassroots markets where quality medical resources are scarce. At present, more than 4,700 intelligent atomization centers supported by AstraZeneca have landed in China. This model has also been replicated globally, and AstraZeneca has supported the construction of more than 1,800 children's atomization rooms in countries and regions along the "Belt and Road".

Speaking of which, the Atomization Center has some connection with Wang Lei's own experience.

When he was a child, Wang Lei was an asthma patient, "At that time, I didn't know that it was asthma, I thought it was a broken lung, I had a cold attack on a cold day, usually a holiday attack, it was quite strange, and then my parents hugged me to the hospital and ran all the way." ”

In addition to respiratory products, Wang Lei's other achievement that he has to say is to lead the team to promote the smooth listing of Teresa, AstraZeneca's non-small cell lung cancer blockbuster product in China.

At that time, it often took two or three years for a new drug to be listed in China, but Teresa submitted a clinical application in China on September 3, 2016, then entered the priority review channel, was approved for listing in March 2017, and then officially launched at an interval of only about three weeks, refreshing the Speed of China. In 2018, the drug was included in the national medical insurance, and in 2020, the medical insurance negotiation was successfully renewed, with a reduction of more than 60%.

According to AstraZeneca's financial report, Teresa's sales reached $4.328 billion in 2020, an increase of 36%, and according to IQVIA's "2020 China Hospital Drug Market Review" report released on May 7, Teresa entered the list of top ten major hospital drugs products in 2020, with an annual growth rate of 69.2%.

After four years, talking about the remarkable continuous promotions, Wang Lei told the surging news reporter: He did not have the ecstasy imagined by the outside world at that time, but only felt that it was a natural thing.

More than 20 years of experience in the industry has made Wang Lei understand a truth: there will always be troughs and highlight moments in his career, the trough period can not be discouraged to give up, nor can it be solved by casual job hopping, you need to have patience to wait for the opportunity, but you must keep learning in waiting, so that when the opportunity comes, you may seize it.

Opportunity

"Anyway, I don't know how to do it, and along the way I have encountered good masters who are famous in China or the world." The heroes in the martial arts film have a good master, and Wang Lei feels that his luck is also quite good, and he has met many masters along the way, and Pascal Soriot, global CEO of AstraZeneca, is one of them.

Wang Lei and Subock met during the tenure of Roche Pharmaceutical, when Wang Lei was transferred to Switzerland to work, and Subocco was already the CEO of Roche Pharmaceutical Department, two people took a bus, "others saw him dodge, the first half of the car was empty, so every time I went up to talk to him, probably because I was a tour guide will get along with people, he is also quite interested in learning how a Chinese to roche headquarters to work."

Subock joined AstraZeneca in 2012 as global CEO, and the following year Wang joined AstraZeneca, which Wang said was a coincidence.

Coincidentally, Wang Lei's ancestral home is Wuxi, and his father later moved to Shanghai. After arriving at AstraZeneca, Wang Lei learned that the predecessor of this company started in Wuxi at the earliest in China.

During the Taihu Lake conference in April, Wang Lei told the surging news reporter when talking about this matter: "When I first came, AstraZeneca tax revenue was one billion yuan in the local area, and today it has been more than three billion, and I feel very proud to contribute to my hometown. People have retired or not to do that day, and they will remember to contribute to their hometown in the future, and they are also worthy of this homeland. ”

Opportunities benefit from personal efforts, benefit from nobles, and are indispensable to the blessing of the general environment of the times.

Taking 2015 as an example, a drastic pharmaceutical reform officially began, after which the approval of new drugs in China was accelerated, and Teresa was able to quickly list in China in 2017, which is also in this context.

Wang Lei also believes that China is becoming the world's largest pharmaceutical consumer market, and their batch of post-70s or post-80s professional managers has taken the first step: "China's performance is doing well, the water is rising, China's economic development is good, when the national policy is also good, this timing has become a natural thing." ”

"If China's professional managers can become global CEOs, it is also proof that China can truly achieve universal access." Wang Lei hopes to see more and more local professional managers go out of China and go to the world in the future.

Localization

Although he has entered the management of multinational pharmaceutical companies, Wang Lei himself is still very Chinese, and the most worn in public is Zhongshan suit. On the day of the interview, The shirt inside Wang Lei's Zhongshan suit could also see the embroidery pattern, and on the foot was a pair of cloth shoes with a thousand layers of bottoms.

As a multinational pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca is often regarded as a non-typical case in China, because the multinational pharmaceutical company is too localized and not foreign enough.

Wang Lei does not care about similar evaluations, looking back on his experience at AstraZeneca in the past eight years, Wang Lei's most important achievement is to truly take root in AstraZeneca. In Wang Lei's view, "if you go to China, you should localize, and you should believe in the Chinese market, believe in Chinese science, believe in the needs of Chinese patients, and the current situation and problems of Chinese medical care are different from other countries."

The so-called "high place is not cold", this high for Wang Lei, is the high position as a professional manager, but also how the current performance of the Chinese market to further grow, and even when can surpass the United States.

Wang Lei felt that this question was meaningless, "Because the price in the United States is ten times that of us, and when you surpass him, you actually have ten times as many as his." ”

As for where he will take AstraZeneca China to the future, Wang Lei said that he hopes to be more localized, bring the original research and development and decision-making closer to the Chinese front line, and at the same time, the local products developed are more international, and help more Chinese products and enterprises to go international.

At present, what the outside world can see is that Wang Lei is promoting the construction of AstraZeneca China's circle of friends, these friends from pharmaceuticals, devices, diagnostics, digitalization, capital and other fields. The day before the interview with us, Wang Lei also had contact with a company that made functional food for diabetics and tumor patients.

AstraZeneca's tentacles continue to extend outwards, and the logic behind it is still the "patient-centric" that he has been emphasizing for the past two years. Wang Lei explained: We never believe in drug treatment, as long as we use AstraZeneca medicine to solve everything, we need a huge circle of friends to do a good job of patient-centered.

Whether it is the past eight years or looking to the future, Wang Lei's pressure comes from all sides.

One of them is from the headquarters, they "don't understand why the Decision of the West is wrong, there must be a fight internally, everyone has to do a lot of persuasion work"; the other is the rise of domestic local enterprises, "The decision-making speed of domestic enterprises is very fast, research and development are in China, and the leverage ability of the capital market is very strong, we are constantly learning, and the pressure on this operation is very large." ”

"Local companies are getting stronger, and I don't think any industry should shy away from this fact." We want to be a local industry enterprise, not a defeated one. Wang Lei stressed.

There is a decorative plate painting on the shelf of Wang Lei's office, which is written on Zheng Banqiao's "Bamboo Stone": Insisting that qingshan does not relax, the roots are originally in the broken rock. Thousands of grinding blows are still strong, and Ren'er's east, west, south and north winds are strong.

The wind of change in China's pharmaceutical industry has not stopped, testing all practitioners. For Wang Lei, pressure is pressure, and more importantly, how to solve one problem after another.

Wang Lei said: "In the end, China is getting better and better, the world is getting better and better, if these directions have not changed, as a practitioner in the pharmaceutical industry, this should be the best era." ”

Editor-in-Charge: It's Winter

Proofreader: Yan Zhang