How Bristol Myers Squibb Re-Designed their Procurement Operating Model for R&D Success: Interview with Brian Whitlock, VP R&D Procurement

Brian Whitlock, Vice President of Global R&D Procurement at Bristol Myers Squibb shares his experience in building a high-performance operating model to support the business objectives of biopharmaceutical research.
In the latest episode of the PharmaSource podcast Brian explains how the procurement operating model had to change following 2019, when BMS announced the acquisition of Celgene.
“The acquisition was a sea change for how we think about procurement, and how to support a much larger critical R&D business unit with 9,000 scientists worldwide.” he says.
Procurement had to align with the priorities for the wider Bristol Myers Squibb business: building a world class pipeline, improving productivity and reducing development cycle times while also delivering high quality medicines to our patients.
In order for procurement to support this, Brian explains that “There has been a lot of process reengineering, both internally and with our partners, but also tapping capabilities that exist within the supplier market, that perhaps we have not made a direct investment in.”

Brian worked with leaders within R&D function to design an operating model that “not only focuses on driving the high volume, high risk and high visibility opportunities but also have individuals with unique skill sets that can drive an innovation portfolio.”
“Procurement played a very important role sitting at the table with our stakeholders to bring those new capabilities to our enterprise.”
“One of the things I absolutely love about R&D is we have very creative scientists that come up with challenging opportunities. Every day is different. Every challenge is a little bit unique. It’s that variation, and the complexity of these challenges that really motivate us day to day.”
The conversation covers the follows:

Strategic procurement helps navigate challenging times
Cultivate an innovation mindset to increase speed to market
Re-designing procurement for speed
Deep accountability for your category
Innovation comes from smaller transactions
One team, serving Patients
BMS Prime: Enabling self service
The growing importance of Computer Aided Research
How important is having a scientific background?

Full article here