When people at the World Health Organization called Dr. Ruxandra Draghia-Akli “one of the mothers of the Ebola vaccine,” she thought it was “obviously an exaggeration.” But it’s also not too far from the truth.
As a vaccine developer who helped bring Merck & Co.’s Ervebo to market and held several headlining roles — like global head of global public health R&D at Johnson & Johnson and director of health research at the European Commission — Draghia-Akli has spent her career at the forefront of vaccine development and global public health.
Now, she’s bringing that expertise to Novavax as its new executive vice president and head of R&D, a role she took last fall.
“I'm an innovator. I like to build things,” Draghia-Akli said. “So I’m really excited to build a product pipeline and to be part of this broader ecosystem of companies that are dedicated to tackling some of the world’s most threatening health challenges.”
To execute on that bigger-picture goal, she’ll have to deliver results from a new business strategy focused on partnerships and internal drug development to help the company find its footing after a tough few years.
Back from the brink
Draghia-Akli arrived at Novavax at a critical turning point.
Despite developing a highly effective COVID-19 vaccine that’s one of only three available in the U.S. and the only protein-based option, sales for the shot suffered from being later to the market than Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna’s vaccines and have continued to fall below expectations.
In a 2023 earnings statement, Novavax said there was “substantial doubt” about its ability to “continue as a going concern.”
Revolt from an activist investor last year also raised questions about the company’s leadership, market struggles and strategy for future growth.
“We need to be flexible, adaptable and not be stuck in the past [to] have this vision for a brighter future.”
Dr. Ruxandra Draghia-Akli
Executive vice president, head of R&D, Novavax
But the company has since made moves to reverse its fortunes, and partnerships are central to its aims. In particular, Novavax is leveraging its technology platform, which boosts immune response to create more effective vaccines through the use of a recombinant protein-based nanoparticle and its proprietary adjuvant, dubbed Matrix-M.
Last year, Novavax inked a licensing agreement that will see Sanofi co-commercialize Novavax’s current COVID-19 vaccine. That deal, worth potentially $1.2 billion, also included an agreement to co-develop novel COVID-19-influenza combination based on authorized vaccines.
Draghia-Akli envisions other vaccine developers using Novavax’s platform to boost the performance of their products.
“We would like to be a partner of choice and to increase the access to this Matrix-M adjuvant,” she said.
The power of partnerships
Throughout her career, Draghia-Akli has seen the impact of partnerships.
When she was at the European Commission, academic investigators didn’t have a “very friendly image of biotech and pharma.”
“I’m not talking only the Europeans,” she said. “Everywhere in the world.”
But governments, industry and academics cannot operate alone when it comes to finding solutions to the world’s most pressing unmet medical needs.
“Each of these communities has their role in the ecosystem,” Draghia-Akli said. “I thought we [could] do better.”
That’s when Draghia-Akli and her colleagues developed the Innovative Medicine Initiative (now the Innovative Health Initiative), one of the largest public-private partnerships for health research in the world. In the years since, the initiative’s projects have resulted in several medical step-changes including a successful Ebola vaccine regimen, and a method to predict outcomes in oncology by sequencing the genetic code of 5 million cancer cells before, during and after treatment.
“I learned [the] value of partnership,” Draghia-Akli said. “Bringing people together, building trust.”
Doctor ‘show me the data’
In addition to building partnerships, Draghia-Akli is helping Novavax advance its pipeline of late- and early-stage programs, including a phase 3 combo jab for COVID-19 and seasonal influenza, and a phase 3 influenza vaccine. The company also has preclinical candidates for RSV, H5N1 avian pandemic influenza, shingles and C. diff.
Throughout her career, Draghia-Akli said, “everyone called me Doctor ‘show me the data’ or ‘Mrs. Data’” — and she’s taking that data-driven approach to Novavax along with an ability to pivot when necessary.
“This is what we need to do. For all our decisions to be informed by data and to keep an open mind, to realize that in science, things change and sometimes the level of understanding is evolving very fast,” she said. “We need to be flexible, adaptable and not be stuck in the past [to] have this vision for a brighter future.”
