We are thrilled to launch our new series, "Driving Market Success: Insights from Biopharma’s Commercial Leaders," with an interview featuring Johannes M. Leuchs.

Johannes is a healthcare executive with a diverse career spanning several senior leadership roles across pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consultancy. Throughout his career, Johannes has leveraged his comprehensive international experience and strategic acumen to drive innovation and sustainable growth.

At UCB, Johannes served as Head of Established Brands where he led a global business unit through a successful turnaround by implementing impactful commercial strategies and a new partnership model. As Head of Portfolio Strategy for UCB’s Rare Disease Organization he has developed the strategy for a new franchise and oversaw the selection of new indications. In his role as Head of New Patient Populations Johannes has been involved in the US rare disease launch strategy development, organizational design, and the development of new operational models. In his current capacity as a Sales Leader for UCB’s US Rare Disease Organization, he leads the Southeast region through the simultaneous launch of two assets for a rare neuromuscular condition.

At BSN medical (now Essity), Johannes held a number of senior roles. He joined as Head of Global Business Development, leveraging his expertise in M&A, building strategic partnerships, and driving operational excellence across diverse product and geographic markets under private equity ownership. He then relocated to Australia to lead the repatriation of the affiliate in Australia & New Zealand. He returned to Europe as Global Head of the Vascular franchise driving substantial business growth through product innovation and creative market expansion strategies.

After graduating from business school and having worked at Allianz, Johannes acquired his foundation in strategic consulting at Roland Berger, where he honed his skills in financial and operative restructuring, leading performance improvement cases, due diligences, and market studies across a broad range of industries.

1.      Career Path

Question: Could you share your journey to reaching your current stage in your career as a senior executive in the biopharma industry? What pivotal roles and experiences have significantly shaped your path?

My focus on healthcare began with me joining a medical device company, where I took on both strategic and commercial roles, which broadened my perspective on business development and market entry strategies as well as to leading larger international and multi-disciplinary projects. Moving into pharmaceuticals allowed me to gain exposure to a new healthcare environment while continuing to oscillate between portfolio analysis, strategy design and hands-on commercial operations while further refining my leadership skillset.

Having lived on three continents in the last ten years—across Europe, Oceania, and North America—has enriched my experience, enabling me to appreciate different healthcare markets and cultural nuances. The richness of these experiences is what defined my career path, more than any single role.

The overarching theme for me has always been to become a great generalist. To accomplish that, it is crucial to successfully connect the dots between disciplines, have a good sense of feasibility, and most importantly deal with different personalities in an organization by tuning into their belief and value systems. This means understanding what is important to them and adjusting my messaging to resonate best with everyone. My success has often come from this ability to connect with diverse teams and stakeholders and translating the targeted impact into their value grid.

In each career stage and assignment, I acquired new skills and insights specific to the role or industry and learned a lot about myself—where my aspirations lie, what I enjoyed doing, and what I should do differently to maximize my impact. Developing people skills and learning to navigate different personalities has been a conscious effort and I made it a point to learn from all my experiences. If someone did something that did not resonate with the team, I would reflect on it, thinking about where the disconnect came from, what was overlooked, and which biases led to the trigger and drove responses.

Continuously observing the dynamics of your audience and stakeholders, and trying to understand their perspectives, is key. However, it is not just about placing positive messages, if you are genuine in your reflections, you are credible and that creates trust for you to also point out things that can be improved upon. Predicting the impact of one’s actions, and navigating personal sentiments is what can set you apart – I also dare to believe that this is an area where AI will struggle to replace humans soon.

2.      Market Expansion

Question: How did you tailor your commercial strategies to expand the market share of treatments in niche therapeutic areas, and what key factors contributed to the success of these strategies?

When shaping your strategy for a particular healthcare market, three elements are important to be analysed in depth:

Starting with the patient, which I feel is particularly decisive in healthcare, you look at their journey and try to understand time to diagnosis, comorbidities, community engagement and cohesiveness, disease awareness, access and affordability, and lifestyle preferences.

The second component is the provider experience which requires assessing how aware they are about the efficacy and safety of the various products, their openness to innovation, and what are their office procedures. For example, when we launched a product with subcutaneous administration in the US, a market that is traditionally more familiar with IV administration, we had to bridge what people were comfortable with and the hardware they used to where we needed them to be to adopt a new therapy.

The third aspect is the competitive context which requires analysing what is the standard of care, how to differentiate with relevance, and the path to product. Understanding the market environment, how your competitors have addressed certain challenges, and which issues remain to be solved is vital.

When formulating your strategy and market approach, one needs to embrace three aspects to increase the chance of making a sustainable impact:

In healthcare, strong medical expertise is paramount to claim your seat at the table and engage with the community at eye’s hight. However, preserving your ability to tune your messages to your audience is key, e.g. specialist vs. generalist, provider vs. staff.

Building a culture of personal and professional growth by balancing the individual goals of your team members with the overarching company goals will help drive retention. There are clearly limits to what can be accommodated, but listening to the aspirations of the people around you will help you connect deeper as team, and it can create unprecedented opportunities at the right moment.

A continuous improvement mindset which involves hearing out your team and studying your market environment to adapt your strategy and ways to operate. While most organizations claim to embrace this principle, it is important to create transparency on the speed at which the changes are being implemented and what impact they create.

3.      Team Leadership

Question: Leading large, diverse teams across multiple regions, including Europe, Asia, and the Americas, is a significant responsibility. How do you cultivate a culture of high performance and innovation within such geographically and culturally diverse teams?

This is driven by two key factors: The mindset of people you recruit and how you nurture the culture through ongoing dialogue.

Firstly, recruiting the right people who align with the organization's values is essential. You must look for individuals who are not only skilled but also want to contribute diverse perspectives and are willing to embrace and advocate for the company's aspirations.

The second aspect is maintaining ongoing dialogue across geographies and disciplines. Leaders need to immerse themselves in local settings and build genuine relationships. This approachability helps break down barriers and fosters unity. For example, while working closely with our affiliate in China, we had 250 people engaged locally for the business that I was fortunate to lead. I would meet the sales and support staff from the various regional offices for business reviews with open Q&A followed by dinner. The fact that they could now put a face to the name and understand that global leadership is not some distant abstract concept, but that there are approachable people with genuine intentions of changing things for the better, even though there was a cultural difference and a massive language barrier, went a long way – Especially in a culture where people bond over meals.

In addition, celebrating local accomplishments by shining spotlights for things that have worked well, connecting the dots between disciplines, and celebrating a culture of progress creates positive reinforcement that motivates and rewards the right behaviours.

4.      Commercial Strategies

Question: What do you consider the most pressing challenges in commercial operations today, such as product launches and post-merger integrations, and what strategies have you found most effective in addressing these challenges?

I feel that companies would benefit from spending more time on clearly defining what success looks like and what the executional path is. Vision is at times mistaken for strategy. ‘We want to be number one – That's our strategy!’ But that is not your strategy, because it does not tell you how to define success, where to go, how to get there, and how to prioritize or inform decision-making. You need to evaluate what does great look like and break down the executional path through an honest lens of feasibility, so you know by when you want to accomplish what. You can be wrong about it, or things can change over time, but you need some kind of plan with sufficient granularity in the areas that will move the dial.

Discussing a potential fear of failure is also important. What are the implications of things not going as planned, what the risks that we anticipate, how heavy do they weigh, which trade-offs can be accepted, and what is the freedom for decision-making of the people in charge?

Another thing that I have seen to be of pivotal importance is the creation of a dedicated governance structure. Many high-value, high-complexity initiatives, which are not part of day-to-day business for most companies, such as building a new franchise or acquiring a company, require a dedicated governance structure. This approach has proven to unburden the team running the initiative and preserving their agility to focus on the tasks at hand.

5.      Biopharma Tech Transformation

Question: How will the integration of digital technologies and artificial intelligence transform the commercial strategies of the biopharma industry, and what implications will these advancements have for patient access, engagement, and treatment outcomes?

Ideally, the use of technology will enable us to serve the community in a more tailored approach and therefore faster and at a lower cost. Driving efficiency and effectiveness will help expedite the patient journey and hopefully broaden the access for patients. However, I believe, the greatest opportunity for AI, at least in a commercial setting, is going to be in the US simply based on data availability.

An important watch-out is user friendliness, because you can create this perception of perfect insights from AI, but if it's stored in a number of different repositories, and nobody makes the effort of tying it together and translating it into a report or even explicit guidance, only few will take advantage. An account executive dealing with over one hundred stakeholders spends most of their time on the road. They do not have time and often also not the affinity to pull information from all these sources. Additionally, the information presented must be filtered so it is truly relevant to the respective individual – At times, less is more and helps focus efforts for true impact.

6.      Stakeholder Management

Question: How do you manage stakeholder relationships when developing and implementing commercial strategies, ensuring buy-in from the C-suite and the board of directors, especially during major transitions like mergers and restructurings?

Assuming that the strategic rationale for the initiative has been established and endorsed, frequent and open communication is key, particularly around trade-offs in these projects, and incorporating these considerations into the broader corporate context.

The evolution of the narrative for the initiative is essential. As new insights become known, as risks shift or emerge, you must constantly adopt and make a genuine effort of establishing transparency of where things are. Because with high-value, high-complexity initiatives, there is always going to be a level of discomfort or even anxiety, as there is a lot on the line, and everyone feels the pressure for it to be successful.

If you can create a positive energy in the team by acknowledging success for hitting milestones, accomplishing targets, and solving complex challenges as part of the initiative, that creates a deep sense of purpose, accomplishment and belonging, which reinforces the right behaviours.

7.      Emerging Markets

Question: Which emerging markets or sectors do you believe hold the most promise for growth, and how should companies position themselves to capitalize on these opportunities?

The fascinating thing about healthcare is that it is led by discovery. The evolution of science will show you where future opportunities are. The way AI is being used in discovery will continue expediting the emergence of new therapeutic approaches and therefore creating opportunities to disrupt treatment options for many severe conditions.

I am biased towards the neurology space. This is a vast area, particularly in rare indications, where there are many severe conditions with massively underserved patient populations. My hope is that discovery is further accelerated by the use of technology, so we will be able to serve a sizeable portion of these populations by offering novel solutions to patients. There are over 7,000 rare conditions, and half of which have a relevant neurological expression for which there is currently no cure or even a targeted treatment. Just by sheer numbers, this is an area that will continue spinning the world of pharma for decades to come. This is an incredible chance to help patients and I want to continue being part of this environment.

8.      Personal Insights

Question: Reflecting on your career, what advice would you give to aspiring leaders in the biopharma industry about achieving success and making a lasting impact?

First, great people do remarkable things. Ideally, surround yourself with people that drive progress without compromising culture, and learn to become an ambassador for this mindset.

Second, do not be afraid to discuss innovative ideas and challenge the status quo. I find that, the more regulated an industry is the greater the tendency to rely on proven approaches. Asking thoughtful questions, even if they take you off the beaten track, is essential. Listening to learn and understanding to make a difference is crucial for both personal and professional growth.

Third, develop an appreciation for the fact that life is not linear. Learn to build resilience and deal with setbacks while staying true to your values and beliefs. Do not give up immediately if things do not go your way. Stick with it and learn from it, because the difficult lessons are the ones that will resonate deeper.