Pfizer's Work At The BoP Topic Of Talk
Monday, November 03, 2008
The director of strategic planning for drug maker Pfizer in Canada, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East will be the next WDI Global Impact Speaker on Thursday, Nov. 6.
The talk by Sebastian Fries will begin at 5 p.m. in Room E0550 at the Ross School of Business. It is titled, “Commercially Viable and Socially Responsible: Pfizer’s New Global Access to Medicines Strategy.” A reception will follow the talk.
Fries joined Pfizer’s Strategic Planning Group in May 2003 where he initially focused on the Northern European Region, Italy, UK and Spain. In 2006, he shifted his focus to emerging markets in Africa, Middle-East and Latin America. He moved to Cairo, Egypt in 2006 for eight months and started up the Middle-Eastern Region’s Strategic Planning and New Product Planning departments.
During this assignment, Fries shifted his interest to developing business models at “The Base of the Pyramid.” Upon his return to Pfizer headquarters in New York, he was part of the team that developed the company’s Global Access to Medicines strategy. Currently, as part of the Global Access initiative, he leads the team’s Healthcare Financing and New Commercial Models group.
Previous to his joining Pfizer, Fries was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University from 1994-1997 where he studied at the Center for International Affairs and the Kennedy School of Government.
He initially planned to pursue a career in politics. In order to explore his interests in the business world, Fries joined a small strategic consulting firm, Vertex Partners, in Boston and worked on projects mainly for Future 100 pharmaceutical companies as well as clients from the biotech and software sector.
Fries has a Master’s degree in International Relations and European History from the University of Cologne. He received a PhD in International Affairs from the Free University of Berlin in 1999.
