In June 2013, Wendy Shusko was named president of WellSpring Pharmaceutical Corp., a Canadian CMO that gained ner ownership in 2011. Ms. Shusko was present at WellSpring’s founding in 2000 and brings an intimate knowledge of the company to her new role. We visited her office in Mississauga, ON to talk about her management style, the growth areas for the CMO business, how she managed the move from a tactical responsibilities to a strategic role, and more.

—GYR

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Contract Pharma: Congratulations on your appointment to president at WellSpring! You’ve been with the company since it was formed in 2000. How has it changed in that span?

Wendy Shusko: Thank you! Really, most of the change has occurred in the last year or so, with that accelerating in the last two months. It was relatively static through 2011, when a new ownership group bought the company.

CP: How has the new ownership changed the company’s focus?

WS: On the CMO side of the business, there’s a more strategic, creative, solution-oriented approach. On our own-products side, there’s more focus on growth than science. To make this work, we’ve restructured the company completely. After the retirement of Bonnie Feeney, who’d been serving as President and Chief Operating Officer in Canada, we restructured so that there was a North American focus for the company.

We brought in Rob Hasselman who is part of that North American focus, as our new vice president of Sales and Marketing for the products side of the business, I was moved to President of the overall company, from my previous role as chief financial officer and chief operating officer, U.S.

It was very important that we promote from within, so that we could have people with an intimate feel for the company coming into senior leadership roles. That involved moving Joe Salmon and James Booker to vice president positions [Plant Operations and Quality & Regulatory Affairs, respectively]. We also brought Sam Ricchezza back on as vice president of Business Development for the CMO side of the business.

CP: It’s an interesting notion, keeping an internal focus while restructuring the company. Often, new owners want “fresh blood,” bringing in new people. Was that internally debated?

WS: It was largely done on a case-by-case basis. The new owners felt that James, Joe and Sam would be good in these new roles. We did decide to bring in a new chief financial officer, which had been one of my previous roles, and that’s certainly brought in a fresh perspective.

The area where we were most lacking was in sales and marketing for the own-product side.

CP: Tell me about the CMO approach you mentioned earlier.

WS: We wanted to take our strength in science and quality and raise that up. With the environment that we’re in, we need to tap into a degree of creativity. Management has decided to break down the silos that existed at the company and look at what we have to offer, in terms of untapped assets in all areas. The CMO business was clearly a big one. We need to utilize those core assets.

Quality is our strength. We can perform tech transfers and scale-up very well. I don’t think we were really selling against those strengths. The new owners could see that and pushed for us to make it a centerpiece of WellSpring. We also decided to re-brand the CMO business as WellSpring Pharma Services to assist in promoting these strengths.

We have re-evaluated our financial approach to RFQs, making us more competitive and allowing us to offer more broad services.
Really, the reason why there’s more focus on our CMO business is that it’s become a lot more exciting.

CP: How do you leverage those strengths in tech transfer and scale-up?

WS: Well, we acquired some products from J&J for our own line years ago. There was a short window, maybe 12 months, to get it in house. J&J didn’t believe it was doable, but we did it very well.

We have demonstrated this ability to complete tech transfers for our customers. One particular instance that comes to mind is a tech transfer and scale-up project we completed in less than five months. We had to bring in a whole new granulator for a product one of our customers came to us with. Once this customer provided approval to proceed with the project, we found that equipment at a big pharma location, brought it in, had to raise the roof in one of our manufacturing suites, rewire the equipment, scaled-up the process into that granulator and made clinical batches for their bioequivalence study.

The point is, we’re a good pharmaceutical manufacturer, not just a contract manufacturer — our customers tell us that. We do the same things that a pharma company does, when it comes to making products.

CP: You’re transitioning from CFO to president. Is it difficult working on a strategic vision for the company but also having day-to-day operations to keep track of?

WS: It was. Until June of this year, I was CFO and COO. In a small company, wearing those two hats isn’t impossible. But what it meant was that I spent more time on tactical issues. Being a CFO is about answers, and being a president is about questions. At one point, I felt like I was asking and answering myself.

There was a lot of focus on moving toward strategic issues and questions, but I was able to do that more effectively once we brought in a new CFO.

CP: What sort of questions are you coming up with?

WS: “What are our goals?” “What are we looking to be in three to five years?” “How do we get there?” “How do we make our leaders stronger?”

One of the concepts I’ve been talking about with the group is that we’ve been manager-oriented, but being a manager and being a leader are two separate things. I want to bring in the concept of leaders building leaders, so that we push down that leadership responsibility and bring up the strength of the company.

It’s not a new concept, but it’s not something we’ve spent much time on.

CP: How do you execute that?

WS: My management strategy is derived from some classic styles: I can direct, I can delegate, I can discuss. But what I tend to do more is get back to basics.

We make products that can improve peoples’ quality of life, but if we don’t perform to our industry’s exacting standards, we could potentially harm people. That has to be in the forefront of our minds. But while the science is complicated, the running of the business is not. It’s simple; it comes down to very few focuses. We have to do what we do well, and make sure we continue to improve. There isn’t more to it than that.

The tactics are how you get that out of people. We’re working on identifying which of our peoples’ talents haven’t been tapped into. We have very long tenure at this company, and there are pros and cons to that. There are untapped resources, and we’re looking for the people who will benefit us and themselves through that process. We want to bring them up, get them leadership training if appropriate, and push down that concept to the next layer below.

Two consistent things about people who are here, whether they’ve been around a long time or not: they have a very strong focus on science and on quality. That’s the constant theme throughout the organization.

Most of us come from big and mid-sized pharma companies, and we bring that training and mentality to WellSpring. Quality is an assumption. It’s expected.

CP: What other questions are you looking at?

WS: “Is there a way to be a better provider for our customers?” In some cases, there are services we no longer provide, but we “speak the language” and want to be our customers’ contact with another provider. We will work with a provider for them and make it easier for the customer to manage. There’s been quite a bit of interest in that as an offering.

CP: What sort of services would that encompass?

WS: Clinical packaging, quality testing, some areas where we just don’t have the throughput. These days, you have to be very careful about growing your footprint. There are so many competitors and so much available capacity that you really don’t want to add some me-too service that other people are already doing well. At the same time, customer needs have to be fulfilled. As a smaller organization, we have to compete with organizations that offer a one-stop shopping model. The solution may be collaborative networks, where we connect customers with specialists for some services, and focus on what we do best.

CP: Where do you see opportunities for expansion, given those constraints?

WS: The company is focused on growth. With the new management, there’s an opportunity to get an understanding of our core offerings, and really leverage our strengths. Relationships are very important for us. We want to define what our best customer is, especially in terms of new customers coming in. Who is the best fit for us, and who are we a good partner for?
We’re looking less at expanding in different markets and more in expanding with certain types of customers.

One thing we’re honest about is that we sell products, not just contract services. We’re very ethical about not crossing any lines, and it enables us to keep the business going during rough patches, to handle the ups and downs of the business, to keep our best scientists here.

That said, growing the CMO business is #1 on our vital goals list for this year.

CP: What’s the biggest limitation you have for that goal?

WS: We don’t see a footprint-limitation for either the product or CMO side. If anything, it’s an issue of visibility. We’re going to be rebranding the company in the year ahead and focus on making sure customers can find us.

CP: Are there any issues about being “over the border” in Canada?

WS: No, it’s never been a hurdle for us. In fact, Canada’s mutual recognition with the EU is an advantage, if customers are looking to sell into that market. As a relationship-extender, it’s a great boon. With some products’ lifecycles, they go generic soon after reaching some markets. In those cases, we’ve kept manufacturing seamlessly as some products have lost patent protection in different regions.

CP: Who is the ‘best customer’? Have you succeeded in identifying that type of company yet?

WS: These days, it’s less about the type of company than it is the type of buyer. It’s important to understand what your priorities are in terms of buyer-personas. What are they looking for, what do they need and how do we provide solutions for them?

CP: What are the company’s biggest challenges to growth?

WS: The length of relationship-building. We know what we want to do, we want to get started, we have the team and the capital to do it, but the nature of the business is long-term, so we have to be patient and stay ready while we develop the customers that are going to drive our growth.

CP: Well, that’s better than having some horrendous quality issues to fix.

WS: It sure is!

CP: How has the CMO market changed during your career?

WS: After the financial crash, we’ve definitely seen more capacity and more competition, which has had an effect on price. But that trend was happening in prior years; it just accelerated after that cliff.

I see it as a positive. I like a challenge, so even though this environment has made the business tougher, I think that’s fun. It’s made us think, “How creative can we be?” Now, every aspect of the company pulls together to figure out what makes a successful proposal that satisfies a customer’s product manufacturing and packaging need. You have to know your customer’s needs, and you have to know every part of your business from soup to nuts, in order to win the contract. It’s more fun to be in a more competitive arena.

CP: Where do you see WellSpring in five years?

WS: I think we’ll still be building relationships, and maintaining the ones that we build along the line. I don’t see us adding more plants. We have plenty of space in our current footprint to satisfy our growth needs. I think we’ll maintain quality, respond to the environment, continue to offer creative solutions to our customers’ needs. It’s a rolling business by nature, and I see us rolling and building momentum.

So, no big move into biologics or sterile injectables, but more of what we do now in terms of dosage forms, while offering creative, flexible solutions.

That said, there have been technological advances that may enable us to make some new offerings in the next few years without making a new facility investment.

CP: What’s one thing that you wish customers knew before they walk in the door?

WS: It’s a cliche by now, but: It’s not all about price. It’s about finding a partner that philosophically fits with who you are as a company and what you’re trying to achieve and isn’t afraid of treating you as if you’re part of the family — a natural extension of your own company. That’s where the true value is. 

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Biographical Note
Wendy Shusko, a WellSpring Pharmaceutical Corp. founder, has been with the company since January 2000 and now serves as president. Ms. Shusko has more than 20 years’ experience within the pharmaceutical industry in a variety of senior positions, including chief operating officer and chief financial officer during her tenure at WellSpring. She held the position of director, Financial Operations while with Roberts Pharmaceutical Corp., a public company acquired by Shire Pharmaceuticals in late 1999. Ms. Shusko has extensive experience in specialty pharmaceutical and consumer products operations as well as related M&A transaction evaluation and implementation. Early in her career, Ms. Shusko worked in the accounting and finance arenas, where she was exposed to a broad array of operational functions through liaison, team participation and management opportunities. She is a New Jersey Certified Public Accountant.