Ipsen : Our 2020 Integrated Annual Report now available for download

As a new CEO, you conducted a strategic review - what were your key learnings?

We have identified solid foundations we can build on: we have a robust specialty care portfolio with leading market shares. Somatuline® is a treatment of choice in neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) in almost all markets. The same applies for Decapeptyl® (triptorelin embonate), where for prostate cancer we have the number one position in many markets.

We are seeing a growing contribution of our newer medicines, where we have achieved tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) market leadership with Cabometyx® in RCC in most European countries. With Onivyde®, we have established a strong position in second-line PDAC, leveraging our oncology presence in the US.

Another big strength is that we now have a truly global presence, with the US representing one third of sales, the five largest European countries representing another third and the remaining third coming from the rest of the world. This makes Ipsen an attractive partner for licensing compounds. Across the globe, we have highly engaged employees, who are passionate about what they do and who have stood up to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lastly, we have strong in-house development capabilities that enable us to leverage new assets and maximize our important life cycle management activities.

However, we also have to acknowledge that there are areas where we need to make further progress and where we are facing some challenges. We are now facing competition in some key markets from direct generics for our key medicine, Somatuline®. We also need to optimize our cost structure by spending smarter, namely by focusing our resources on the highest-impact activities and by generating manufacturing efficiencies.

We have a solid late-stage pipeline, but we have more work to do on external innovation to strengthen it across all stages of development. In order to achieve that, we will have to improve both the quality and the quantity of our external innovation execution.