Between April 2020 and today, the executive board of Kyowa Kiran North America (KKNA) has grown from being predominantly male to a 50/50 gender split.
From Left: Kyowa Kirin Executive Director of Research Rachel Soloff, VP of Public Affairs Lauren Walrath and VP Regulatory Affairs Casilda Barnes/Courtesy of Kyowa Kirin.
Specialty pharmaceutical company Kyowa Kirin aims to be as diverse as it is multinational. Between April 2020 and today, the executive board of Kyowa Kiran North America (KKNA) has grown from being predominantly male to a 50/50 gender split, and the company is by no means stopping there.
North America is the company’s fastest-growing region, having expanded from $25 million in annual revenue in 2017 to $500 million in 2020 on the strength of three first-in-class medicines launched in the neurology and rare disease spaces during the past three years. Crysvita® is a recombinant fully human monoclonal IgG1 antibody against the phosphaturic hormone fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23), Poteligeo® is approved for rare forms of Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL) and Nourianz® is on the market as a therapy for Parkinson’s disease.
KKNA has also added nearly 100 new team members since the beginning of last year.
BioSpace sat down with three members of the leadership team: Lauren Walrath, VP of public affairs, Casilda Barnes, VP regulatory affairs and Rachel Soloff, executive director of research, to learn more about the company’s journey.
“We know that women in leadership roles encourage more diversity of thought, help companies in terms of driving better performance and really ensuring that the broader workplace is truly inclusive,” Walrath said.
Any initiative – cultural or otherwise – is spearheaded from the top down, and Gary Zieziula took the helm as president and region head of KKNA in April 2020 with a goal to make diversity, equity and inclusion a cornerstone of the business’s growth.
“We face many challenges in our mission to improve the health and well-being of patients,” Zieziula said. “Some of those challenges are inherent to conducting research and clinical trials, especially during a global pandemic. I believe a diverse leadership team is key to bringing more perspectives into business planning and problem-solving as we strive to have a profound impact for diverse groups of patients.”
“He really took this on as a personal mission,” Walrath added.
At KKNA’s R&D site in La Jolla, CA, the racial makeup is 40% white and 40% Asian, with Hispanic Pacific Islanders rounding out the team. The gender composition is 60% female to 40% male, with equal numbers in the division’s leadership.
Soloff explained that a comfort level with diverse colleagues is imperative to working at Kyowa Kirin.
“We’re extremely collaborative,” she said. “Unlike other pharma or biotech (companies), we’re not siloed. All of the different teams work very closely together, so when we’re hiring and advancing people to leadership, it’s more about identifying individuals who are accepting of others and open to different ideas, different approaches and different thoughts.”
Currently, the entire North American regulatory team is female, while women comprise a majority of the larger global regulatory leadership. Barnes shared that her counterparts in both Europe and Japan are women of color like herself. “This is what is embraced,” she said.
Though Walrath is proud of her company’s commitment to gender parity, she shared that there is still work to be done.
“When we look outside of our company, we aren’t 100% sure that there’s enough progress being made in some other areas,” she said. “I think there’s been a remarkable amount of new biotechs becoming public. There are great venture funds behind many of those activities, and they’re still largely dominated by men.”
For Barnes, intentionality is the key.
“It’s a mindset change,” she said. “I think we are getting to that tipping point, but I think one has to be intentional to make the strides that need to be made.”
In California, KKNA is affiliated with the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, a non-profit academic organization dedicated to understanding the power of the immune system. Sharing a building, Soloff and her colleagues have a unique window into the career progression of women scientists and leaders in academia.
“Over the history of the institute, there have been very few women faculty. They’ve been pushing to recruit more faculty, and the board just nominated the first new first female president and CEO,” Soloff shared. “It’s exciting to see that progress.”
Dr. Erica Ollmann Saphire, who is known for her work on both COVID-19 and the Ebola virus, officially assumed the role on September 1.
Gender equality is not alone on the list of DEI objectives for KKNA. Walrath shared that diversity has been elevated in the company’s five-year plan that projects out to 2030.
“The commitment to diversity is something where we’re trying to look at all races, all faiths, all sexual orientations and other aspects of what people bring to their lives and to their work,” she said.
Walrath attributes some of KKNA’s success in increasing diversity to the organization’s rapid organic growth. KKNA has expanded from a team of 330 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic to approximately 425 today.
“As the company looks ahead, the plans to continue to grow here in North America are significant, so to some degree, I think that does also allow us an ability for rapid change on this front,” she said.
While Kyowa Kirin is committed to diversity from a global standpoint, Walrath shared that this looks different in each region.
“Our society here in North America, and particularly here in the US, is a much more heterogeneous society, so our definition of diversity comes in a lot of different forms,” she said. “In Japan, it is actually a little bit more focused on gender and trying to elevate more women into the global leadership roles there.”
While the rate of change may be slower in Japan due to the more established nature of the organization, Walrath added that the parent company champions and applauds all of KKNA’s diversity initiatives.
Soloff highlighted a secondment program that has been in place since her early days with the company when it was known as Gemini Science.
“We’ve had quite a few women scientists from Japan come over and work with us, and I think that’s when the mentorship comes into it,” she said. “Because of the cultural differences, just providing that support for women to help their voices be heard, not only locally but globally, has been something that we’ve attempted to support.
“I think it’s a recognition from our Tokyo colleagues to send both women and men over to learn more about a diverse and heterogeneous business culture.”
Walrath shared the company’s DEI mission statement: “We want to be an organization where diverse talent thrives and has a chance to realize their full potential at Kyowa Kirin.”
KKNA is building a diverse team to help it reach this objective.
