My name is Yohan D’Souza, and I provide strategic leadership for a handful of non-commercial departments related to compliance, pharmacovigilance, medical affairs and more at LEO Pharma Canada.

On top of that, I help generate and optimize LEO Pharma Canada’s team culture – guided and motivated by our corporate purpose and values – while driving overall financial performance within Canada.

Achieving impact is something of a raison d’etre for me personally. You could say it’s what I get out of bed to do every single morning. The context doesn’t matter. Maybe I’m working with colleagues to reduce patients’ disease burden, or maybe I’m supporting team members to advance their careers and grow professionally. Impact is what it’s all about – for the individual as well as for the entire company.

When choosing to join LEO Pharma in 2021, I was especially attracted by three things: The size of the company, its corporate environment and the journey we’re on in healthcare together. I had begun my career at a small biotech firm and then, later, segued into the rare-disease field. Now that I can look back on a few years at LEO Pharma, I find myself really enjoying the growth and transformation journey of this remarkable company.

I appreciate the culture at LEO Pharma (in Canada and globally) very much – it’s so full of professionals who will gladly wear multiple hats and take on different projects that stretch them beyond their comfort zones. And I can personally testify to the fact that it’s these qualities in our people that are allowing us to grow and be of service to those affected by skin diseases.

What do I believe about innovation? I firmly believe that to innovate in any disease area you need to put the patient first and align business priorities with real-world health outcomes. I also know that this is not an easy thing to do at all. But here’s what I would say to that:

The fact that patient-centric innovation is hard should never deter us from pursuing it. On the contrary, it should motivate us to try even harder, to lead by example and to dare to be different.