Testimonials

If you would like to know what a PAF project is about, take a look at the testimonials of recent candidates. They are classified by region where their assignment took place. Enjoy and be inspired!

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Gauthier Meessen - Participant 2017

This was a challenging albeit very rewarding assignment, which I was very proud to successfully contribute to.

Role

Gauthier participated in the launch of two innovative neurology drugs for UCB China.

Responsibilities

His primary objective was to coordinate the preparation of the launch of both drugs. ln addition to this initial objective, he actively took part in multiple key strategic commercial decisions regarding the launches of the new products, i.e., segmentation and market positioning, supervision of a 10-Year sales planning exercise and participation in the pricing and market access project.

He also had to quickly assimilate a lot of information about the clinical specificities of the medicines, as well as about China’s healthcare ecosystem. Interacting closely with health care specialists, understanding the unmet needs of millions of patients, and continuously seeking to bring them new therapeutic solutions was very gratifying.

How he benefited

Prior to his Prince Albert Fund assignment, Gauthier worked in the finance team of a global healthcare company, where he was promised a bright future in Finance. But once he realized that he was specializing in a niche function and not growing as much as he wanted, he decided to broaden his horizon and actively pursue new opportunities.

The Prince Albert Fund program helped Gauthier to jump ahead and develop new skills and expertise. Even if it takes a great leap of faith to quit your job after five years and start working at the other end of the world, Gauthier doesn’t regret his decision! At UCB he was given the opportunity to coordinate multiple cross-functional assignments and learn more about general management roles, which was his objective.

The company – UCB China

With its unique mix of expertise in biology and chemistry, UCB is a Belgian pharmaceutical company with operations in 40 countries. The group aspires to be the patient-centric global biopharmaceutical leader transforming the lives of people living with severe diseases.
In 2014, UCB opened a new manufacturing site in China, bringing innovative medicines to patients in Asia.

“Gauthier’s contribution has been of great value to UCB China. From strategic thinking to an analytical mindset and cross-functional leadership, he possesses a large set of capabilities that were critical to the success of our project on the Chinese market.”

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