Author: Christian Velten

In April 2009, a new line management of our team at Novartis asked for a new internal scientific information tool. The specification was  something like “PubMed … but much better!” (PubMed is a public search engine for bio-medical scientific literature, provided by none other than the US National Institutes of Health) The whole team met the spontaneous challenge, which came on top of concurrent pressure regarding resources as well as a quite high basic load regarding obligatory standard deliveries. I am still proud that I had the opportunity to be part of a real success story. After only 7 months for development and implementation we provided…

I would like to share this article that was once published by Patrick Scholler in my former online journal Inside-Lifescience. I think it is worth not to be lost … Originally published in November 2001 by Inside-Lifescience, ISSN 1610-0255.

The fact that the 2001 Nobel Price in Medicine has been awarded to three Yeast researchers should not lead to the wrong conclusion that the Nobel committee appreciated the fight against alcoholism or overweight. In fact without the tasty products of Brewers or Bakers Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) our lives would be much more healthy but – honestly – less nicer. Coming to the point, the award really recognizes the contributions of Leland Hartwell, Paul Nurse and Timothy Hunt to the understanding the control mechanisms of the cell cycle, the molecular cell division management system. I myself did research on cell…

Two weeks ago I participated in a strategy workshop organized by Arthur D. Little and the German Ministry for Education and Science (BMBF). As part of our talks we discussed the value of scientific information as well as the existing scientific information distribution and access structures. As two major problems we identified that scientists are not really aware of a variety of information resources they could access, and that publication and valuation processes will intensively change within the next years. To provide you with the corresponding background: the BMBF commissioned the management consultant Arthur D. Little and the ‘Gesellschaft für…

Within 5 weeks in Q2/2009, I designed and implemented a new literature support process for periodic safety reports by Novartis Drug Safety. The service was fully compliant to regulatory requirements and covered all global Novartis drugs (~160) as well as all periodic safety reports to relevant authorities by Novartis Global Drug Safety (PSUR, PBRER, ASR, DSUR). For example in 2012 and 2013, around 1’000 produkt-related literature searches per year were processed by the service (on average 85 per month). Originally this process had been intended to be an interim solution. But due to its stability, reliability and scalability, it was subsequently expanded to Sandoz (generics) and Novartis Vaccines products, and…

Between 2009 and 2013, I responsibly cared for the internal customer relationship management on behalf of the Novartis Knowledge Management business unit. My objectives had been to proactively manage customer relations, to align our deliveries with our clients’ business needs, to design efficient customer service processes ensuring high levels of customer satisfaction, and to coordinate the customer support team. In this role, I responsibly conducted an  internal customer survey by doing series of interviews with middle and senior management stakeholders. I published the results in April 2009 as internal  report “Current situation of the Novartis Pharma internal information supply – An analysis of needs and…

Journalists as well as politicians are desperately looking for lab results that nicely fit to a political ideology.

Traditionally an old years end is the time of reflections. No, I do not mean the bright glittering snow in some people winter holidays. I am talking about thoughts regarding the sense of life. Did I get the best out of the old year? Could I have done something better? What will be in the new year, what challenges and tasks are waiting for me? And what are my personal priorities in life? As a young PhD student – quite a few years ago – I read a Science article by Gregg Easterbrook about the social as well as ethical…

Do you remember? Y2K had been announced as the great entry into the millennium of biotechnology! Did you get it? 2000 in biotechnology was planned as the year of the big conferences and meetings as well as the year of the phenomenal announcements. This should have been the grandiose prelude for an international campaign against the technique critics. But did anyone – besides scientists – really pay attention to all the efforts. Honestly: no. No, because this is how it should be _ or no, because we missed the chance to present our science to the people. If you picked…

Nov 2008 – Jun 2014 / NOVARTIS PHARMA AG – Identified strategic and operational needs, translated those into effective solutions and support processes, providing Novartis with superior strategic information and medical evidence for a knowledge-driven competitive advantage. • Coordinated and supervised globally distributed teams (Basel, India, UK) delivering high quality and compliant in-house product intelligence.