Unique Contributions

Rhett Alden - Improving patients' lives

• Rhett Alden • Season 1 • Episode 3

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In this episode, YS Chi talks to Rhett Alden who joined Elsevier with “the idea, the expectation, that we’re really going to do something significant in the healthcare space to improve patients’ lives”. 

YS asks Rhett how it was possible to make such quick progress with the Covid vaccines, how to continue the push for more open access to information and how to build trust. Rhett shares his insights on all the possibilities that come with bringing different large data sets together to better understand patients, the exciting developments in oncology and the latest tools that are helping doctors find the best cancer treatments.

Rhett Alden is the chief technology officer for health and commercial markets at Elsevier.

This podcast is brought to you by RELX.

YS Chi:

The Unique Contributions podcast is brought to you by RELX. Find out more about us by visiting RELX.com.

Rhett Alden:

And you know. So I came over to Elsevier with the with the idea and i don't i think it's more than an idea. It's an expectation that we're going to really do something significant in the healthcare space and improve patients lives.

YS Chi:

Hello, and welcome to Unique Contributions, a RELX podcast where we bring you closer to some of the most interesting people from around our business. I'm delighted to be joined this week by Rhett Alden, who is the Chief Technology Officer for health and commercial markets at Elsevier. Rhett welcome. It's great to have you today. How have you been through this pandemic?

Rhett Alden:

Well, thanks. Thanks for inviting me. Well, yes, I'm really happy to be here. The pandemic, like for many people has been a challenge. Spending a lot of time at home, working from home and trying to be compliant it needless to say it's a it's also a challenging time in work relations and even customer relations. As it's impacting, as you know, the whole world in terms of how we communicate and, and really how we engage, which is, which is a real challenge, I think for all of us.

YS Chi:

Indeed, it is the course you're our CTO of health and commercial markets here at Elsevier. And as I understand it, you've spent most of your career in this area, right?

Rhett Alden:

That's right. It really since I got my postdoc, and I suppose even before that, you know, when I when I left academics, I I was focused on theoretical biophysics. And then I, really felt like I wanted to get closer to more directly helping people. So, I moved into healthcare. And, to me, healthcare is a big space. You know, it combines anything from life sciences to biotech to clinical software. And I guess you could think of me as a bit ambidextrous because I started out working in a smaller biotech company focused on research around what's called chromatin structure, which is the DNA structure in cells that allows for cell differentiation and potentially cancer, right, because some, sometimes those mutations can cause unusual effects. And I spent a number of years there with a software team. And then also a set of scientists, you know, really analysing genomic data and things like that. And then I moved more into clinical software and spent about 14 years at GE Healthcare. Where I ran two different divisions as chief software architect one focused on inpatient or hospital based systems like perinatal radiology, what you think of is more what you see when you go into a hospital, those kinds of solutions, and then about six years of that career, GE Healthcare in what's called medical diagnostics, and that was really looking at digital solutions around what are called in vitro diagnostics. And specifically, we're focused on cancer again, and looking at ways to better diagnose cancer using analytical and software tools. And again, I think I was really proud of that, because after, about three or four years in that effort, we released a solution for diagnosing Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is really hard to diagnose, and that was really impacting people.

YS Chi:

That sounds incredible. It sounds like you were really able to change people's lives for the better. Can you then tell us how you made that change to come to Elsevier a year and a half ago?

Rhett Alden:

Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it's an interesting journey for me because being at GE Healthcare, I had a chance to kind of see a lot of what happens from the doctors perspective. And then I spent about six years in Life Sciences focus more on chronic disease and really developing medical device software for patients, patients with diabetes patients with cardiac issues, etc. And then what really interests me about Elsevier is the fact that the corpus of knowledge that Elsevier has and the real focus, I think combining research information, clinical information, and really other data assets to innovate in, healthcare and solve real problems. It's very intriguing to me, because throughout my career, the biggest challenge has been a paucity of data. Right, in the end that, you know, you struggle in an inpatient setting, because you only have the medical record, you struggle with the patient, because you don't necessarily have the medical data that you need. And then what Elsevier really brings to the table is an enormous enormous store of knowledge assets, both from research from clinicians, from all sorts of different areas. That in my mind is really the, secret sauce in terms of really helping move healthcare forward. So you know, so I came over to Elsevier with the with the idea, and I don't, I think it's more than an idea, it's an expectation that we're going to really do something significant in the healthcare space and improve patients lives.

YS Chi:

When I entered this some 15 years ago, Elsevier was already a giant, as you said, you know, a databank, right of knowledge and information. By but that's where it had ended, obviously, in the journey since then, it has become much, much more valuable by being to reuse that data for something useful in decision making, whether that's clinician or researcher. Right. That's right. Tell me what surprised you the most, when you joined here? What was the most positive, unexpected discovery?

Rhett Alden:

Yeah, I would say there's two things. The first one is the people. And the reason I say that is, I'm amazed almost on a daily basis of how unified the mission is, you know, and the mission is really one around improving humanity and improving the lives of people, you know, and that's really the mission. That's the mission of why we publish the works. We do. You know, it's moving. It's moving science and humanity forward. And I think that resonates as almost as a an undercurrent, within Elsevier, which, which I think really helps in, in how we how we can accelerate this. And the second one, I would say, is the, the understanding that change needs to happen, you know, and that, and that change is important. And I think that we, we've seen that in some of the areas that we've done with COVID in the pandemic, that change, positive change in the way people can access knowledge and what they can do with it. And then positive outcomes that can be derived from that. And I think that's really something that gets me excited on a daily basis.

YS Chi:

So would you say you just timed it perfectly well?

Rhett Alden:

I would never associate my fortunes with the pandemic, let me put it that way. But, I would say that, you know, I, I'm fortunate to be in a situation to help.

YS Chi:

Excellent. So I am particularly interested to hear about how you are today in this technology role, having really come from more of the scientific and research background, and the journey in between, and because you've had, you know, more than a half a dozen different pivots along your life. Can you you know, not now that you're sitting here and looking backward, what kind of advice would you give to people who are in their mid career and beyond? That it isn't over by any means.

Rhett Alden:

Yeah, you know, a lot of times when you look back on your career, or even any historical trajectory, you think that it's entirely deterministic. And that's rarely the case. You know, there's different combinations of circumstances that, that drive the trajectory along. But, you know, one thing that I feel very strongly about for me is that I would advise anyone in their career to follow what they're passionate about. Because, that passion and for me, the passion is improving people's lives. You know, some people may feel that's a bit cliche, but I'm being very honest about that, you know, I've stayed in healthcare, even though it's a tough field, it's filled with Luddites - sometimes change occurs on a 10 year cycle, because of the risk profile. But at the same time, having the passion to really improve the outcomes of real people, and the lives of real people is something that has kept me going through my career. And I think that may be what drives the pivots. It's not a pivot out of boredom. It's not a pivot out of necessity. It's a pivot about, you know, adjusting to that Northstar. And I think that's, that's what I would advise really anyone in their career because in the end, if you're doing it for money, it's not really about satisfaction. In the end, you know, it should be about some higher goal than that.

YS Chi:

Right, we need to find that higher goal. Right now, our higher goal is to global pandemic. So let's twist there. We're facing a global pandemic right now, and times are certainly very taxing on a personal front, professional, front, social front, and so on. Right. And with that being said, can you tell us a little bit about how the healthcare industry has been redefined by pandemic, and how you as a leader in a rather affected industry, like Elsevier, is trying to lead Elsevier to adjust itself to fit into this new era?

Rhett Alden:

Sure, I think the one of the more obvious things, especially if people have gone to see a clinician or GP, in the last, say, eight months is the emergence of telemedicine and remote healthcare. And that in and of itself is something that is going to change healthcare, for the future. And I think in a very positive way, because access to healthcare services is a big challenge. So when you look at what the pandemic has done, it is in some ways accelerated access, through digital services and through that mindset. The other the other piece that the pandemic has done to healthcare is change the velocity. So, now knowledge is doubling in the order of every seven to 10 days, some extraordinary number like that. When I say knowledge, I mean, any published literature, published information, etc. And the challenge in the pandemic was not only for us, but also for the healthcare system is, how in the world do I get access to the latest information? How do I understand how best to treat someone with COVID? How do I understand experimental treatments? How do I understand the best ways to protect my staff? And, and the way that occurs is through more fluidity in knowledge access and more fluidity in really democratising information. And, I think that that's going to stay potentially not at the same velocity. But I'm hopeful that our velocity of change in healthcare instead of delivering a treatment in 15 years, that could help patients, maybe we can get that down to five or six. Because, the need is there. And I think what we need is the expediency and I believe that the pandemic will in the end, have some silver linings in that area.

YS Chi:

So this vaccine is a good example, isn't it? Right? That's COVID. And we've heard announcement about Pfizer and bio and tech, their clinical trials showing 90% effectiveness. That was done very quickly. I think that people in the pharma industry would not have predicted that that could be doable, two years ago, five years ago. How is it possible then?

Rhett Alden:

You know, let me let me answer that in a slightly roundabout way. Back in May, Elsevier decided that in order to really help accelerate scientific research in COVID, and help with this global issue, we launched what was called the COVID Research hub. And that Research hub is an aggregation of a variety of our tools from our research division, our Life Sciences Division, as well as healthcare that were offered for free to the global community. If they were doing research on COVID and that example, I think is one about marshalling, your higher goals, and marshalling your, you know, your inner desire to help humanity. And I'm using that as an example not because it directly ties to, the Pfizer announcement, but that, I think it, I think we can really move forward when we start collaborating, and really joining forces on some of these larger problems. Pfizer is collaborating with multiple different groups globally. They are one of the individuals that are accessing the information that we provide, in terms of the rapid access to COVID research data. And I'm proud of the fact that, you know, we're at least playing what I would argue is a fairly substantial role in that journey, in terms of how to accelerate that kind of research. Now, one of the challenges in life sciences and in healthcare is safety and efficacy. And that's something that we and everyone else can't compromise on. I think the biggest challenge for Pfizer and Life Sciences is how to move fast safely. Because, we don't want mistakes to happen when we're talking about a vaccine that might be given to billions of people. Um, that's definitely, you know, not a good outcome. So I think that that challenge can be mediated by having access to more information and more knowledge. And again, I think it shows the importance that Elsevier can play there. But also, the capabilities that life science and biotech can truly have and innovating and moving forward when they have to or need to.

YS Chi:

Yeah, we're gonna touch on some other things that Elsevier is doing. But you're right. I mean, you've made a very important point that a lot of people are changing the way they live and work. And, one of the things at work around our domain is the widespread push for more open and accessible data, more open and accessible information, and even resources. Not just for the researchers, but also for patients and, and practitioners, right? To a different degree. One of the things that worried me on the on the other hand, and maybe this is, I really don't want to step on the political boundary is that these things are not easy. They're sophisticated information. And I wonder if the gap of haves and have nots, not just economic gap, but knowledge gap between haves and have nots, or understand not understand, may make our world even more bipolar? What do we have to do to make sure that this information is not just accessible and understandable to the PhDs, but to many, many millions and billions of patients and practitioners?

Rhett Alden:

I would say, trust is, is easy to lose and hard to maintain. And, I would say that in some parts of our current culture due to social media and other aspects, trust, in some cases has been lost or maybe misguided might be a different way to put it. You know, I think that consistency and message, consistency and the democratisation of data, transparency in the way information is reviewed and published. And really, a strong sense of integrity is really needed to, you know, to really move that forward. You know, I'm arguably an overtrained scientist, you know, slash academic. But at the same time, I recognise that the individual on the street may not need to know the details of you know, the mutation rates of COVID right. But what they need to know and trust is that the institutions that are moving to really support them in their healthcare journey can be trusted. And that's something that we need to really reinforce across not only Elsevier, but across the entire academic and research community and healthcare community.

YS Chi:

You are making some really, really important points today. And I'm really glad that you are touching on them. And speaking of trust, and Elsevier, we have been a trusted source of key information in healthcare for centuries now almost right, since we're about to celebrate the Lancet's Bicentennial in a couple of years. What do we do that continues to build that trust? In these very confusing times, particularly for the health and commercial division?

Rhett Alden:

I think we we have the trust of the professional community, you know, which is, which is terrific. And I think if you go into virtually any healthcare institution, on the planet, they would know, the plenary journals and publications that Elsevier provides, and the unparalleled integrity of the review boards and the approval process. And that trust is there. I think the bigger question is, how do does that really get down to people that are, for example, afraid to take a vaccine or individuals that, you know, decide that basic public health measures aren't valid or reliable? And that, I think, is a really hard question. But I think that our role there is to reinforce that based on the integrity of the data of the research and of the partners that we have globally. And continue that, hard journey, I would say, of reinforcing transparency, integrity, and honesty. But it is a hard problem YS, it's really hard to kind of figure it out, you know, how do you how do we overcome the social media challenges that we face globally?

YS Chi:

Right. Elsevier has always been really more the b2b mindset. Right. So the b2c mindset is relatively new to us. And one of those ways that we can add to our skill set is further innovation. I believe that innovation is what's going to continue to build the trust in Elsevier. So can you tell me a little bit about some of the innovative things that your group is tackling?

Rhett Alden:

Yeah, sure. I think I think one of the really interesting areas that folks may not have a lot of insight into is the work we're doing in oncology and cancer treatment. I find that to be a really fascinating area for me personally, because as I mentioned earlier, I was involved in cancer diagnostics, at a number of points in my career. And so we have at Elsevier, in the health markets division, a solution for helping guide clinicians and the appropriate diagnosis and treatment of cancer. It's a sign of decision support guidelines that can be used to really aid in that process and provide arguably best practice. And that's an area I think that as we innovate more, we want to get more and more in touch with the other pieces of the puzzle. And what I mean by that is, you'll recall earlier in this discussion, I talked about the isolation of data, the fact that clinicians tend to only have the electronic medical record data. They don't have much context about the patients and we often forget about the patient. So one of the innovative things that we're really looking at is how do we better understand and profile the patient as an individual, not just as a biomarker, just as a tumour, but as an individual that has life challenges, either financial, career, family, psychosocial, depression? How do these impact the overall treatment of an individual that may be diagnosed with cancer and needs to go on chemotherapy? And that's a really interesting, and I think, critical challenge for us and something that we're starting to innovate on. So how can we really marry up different data assets across the RELX and Elsevier portfolios to really better understand who that individual is that's walking, I would say probably hesitantly into oncologists office? And how do we help them in that journey as they as they go from early diagnosis to treatment to hopefully recovery.

YS Chi:

And that, again, you mentioned this, you know, bringing the isolated data together, which requires collaboration, right. And that collaboration internally within different pockets of Elsevier, but more importantly, other players outside of Elsevier, as well, as you mentioned about Pfizer having to collaborate with multiple different entities around the world. Do you think that we are in a mindset for that sort of extramural collaboration at Elsevier?

Rhett Alden:

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And in fact, we we routinely collaborate with healthcare institutions today. And we're, we're always looking for opportunities to, you know, just in the crassest way, one plus one is four, right? Because the honest truth is that, while Elsevier can do a lot, it's it takes a village to do some of these big hairy problems. And collaboration is really the cornerstone of that, and something that not only I but individuals and leaders within the company feels critically important.

YS Chi:

What about drug discovery?

Rhett Alden:

Yeah, good question. We, you know, we, we focus in our commercial markets division on a lot of different tools to help aid in not only drug discovery, but the acceleration of the drug pipeline overall. And that, that covers anything from medicinal chemistry, which would be for folks that may not be aware small molecules, organic molecules, to biologics, which are something that's very becoming more and more importantly, these are generally proteins that can be injected directly into the body, insulin would be an example. But there's a lot of others now that, that are being used for treatment, and really even cures for different kinds of diseases. So our solutions are really the underpinnings for opportunities to accelerate that pipeline, which has historically been about 12 years, it's a little frightening, because if you were in any other field, and you said, well, it's going to take us 12 years to make money at this, most companies would run out of the room screaming, but in life sciences and and pharmaceuticals 12 years is standard. And at the same time for me, and I would argue for Elsevier 12 years is at least seven years too long. Right? Because that means 12 years of a of a patient not getting a treatment for potentially life threatening illness. So our mission there, again, is to use knowledge, assets, use big data, use the ability to mash up information and collaborations to really drive innovation to accelerate that pipeline. It's good for life sciences, and it's good for people.

YS Chi:

I'm going to put you on the spot with a difficult question. In the years to come, what would you like to accomplish, that is unique, in a form of a legacy of Rhett Alden for this institution called Elsevier?

Rhett Alden:

So one of the things that I've really since since I was at medical diagnostics at GE Healthcare, I felt that the line between research and clinical care was too rigid. And Elsevier has offerings in both of those spaces, we provide solutions to improve clinical treatment. We provide solutions to accelerate drug discovery. And the mixing point, the part in the middle, which arguably is called real world evidence, some people call it post market surveillance data. But it's not the name that matters. It's really around, how can I move to a model of precision medicine that allows me to use all of that data in the treatment of an individual and that, I think is something that Elsevier could play a tremendous role in, and that I've really, always been very passionate about because this 12 to arguably 18 year pipeline is just awful, right? It's It's awful for humanity. And if we can shorten that, and start to blur the line between the bedside treatment and research, that I think is the really the future of healthcare, and I think, that's one of the legacies that I would like to at least be a part of.

YS Chi:

You are certainly in the company of many with similar wishes. And I do hope that you are going to be able to introduce the type of innovation, bold innovation that will achieve those. Thank you, Rhett. We have talked today with Rhett, who is a man with a North Star guiding him and was pleased to discover the unified mission among people among his colleagues at Elsevier. And also, I will never forget that you said it was one plus one equals four, when all of us talk about one plus one equals to three. So clearly, you're far more ambitious with the things that we can do at Elsevier. Thank you again, Rhett, for joining us today.

Rhett Alden:

Thank you. Real pleasure.

YS Chi:

Thank you to our listeners for tuning in. Don't forget to hit subscribe on your podcast app to get new episodes as soon as they're released. Tune in next time for another episode of our unique contribution series. Thank you again for listening.