34th NUSPS President, How Ti Hwei shares his wisdom

Mr How Ti Hwei graduated from NUS Pharmacy in 1995 and was the 34th President of the NUS Pharmaceutical Society. In this inaugural issue, he talks to Angeline Lai about his career in the pharmaceutical industry and how his education in NUS Pharmacy has shaped him.

Tell us a bit about your career progression

I did my pre-registration training at the National University Hospital (NUH), then moved into consumer marketing in Proctor & Gamble. After six years there I went back into pharmaceuticals when I joined Janssen-Cilag – the pharmaceutical division of Johnson & Johnson. After which I spent another four years in the consumer division of J&J, before moving to AstraZeneca in 2010. I’ve worked in multiple countries across Southeast Asia over my entire career, and I’m now the Country President of AstraZeneca in Singapore.

Could you tell us a bit about your day-to-day work in AstraZeneca?

I often skip from meeting to meeting, dealing with a variety of issues. I work with the country leadership team to determine how our business is doing, review sales figures, market shares and so on. We look at the latest clinical trial developments, and monitor the progress of our product registrations. We discuss whether we have the right talents in the right roles, and spend time with our field force to meet our customers and understand the work on the ground.

Are you part of any external committees outside of work?

I’m currently the President of the Singapore Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (SAPI) and Chairman of the European Chamber of Commerce (EuroCham) Healthcare Committee. In SAPI, we are a network of 34 multinational biopharmaceutical companies with the mission to collaborate with policy makers and make innovative medicines accessible to patients in Singapore. For instance, we work with the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) to explore ways to accelerate regulatory approvals which bring medicines to patients faster.

What do you find most rewarding about your career now in the industry?

What I find particularly rewarding is bringing life-changing medicines to patients. Clinical pharmacy is the frontline; pharmacists work in multidisciplinary teams to ensure patients are taking the right medicine in the right dose at the right time and so on. In the pharmaceutical industry, we create great medicines and make them accessible to our clinical counterparts. AstraZeneca makes medicines used in conditions such as diabetes, asthma, and cancer. Our medicines improve the quality of life for countless patients. Our work is more upstream of the clinic, but equally makes a difference to patients. It’s essential.

Changing track a little, I heard that you were the NUSPS President back when you were in NUS. What did you learn as NUSPS President and what do you miss about it?

During my term, I learnt that as a leader you must know 3 things. Strategy, people and stakeholder management. You decide on the strategy, then work with your people and manage stakeholders to get things done. These are valuable life lessons I still take with me today.

The best thing about student leadership positions is that they are relatively risk-free. There are few consequences if you make mistakes, and very often you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. I miss those times when I was able to learn and make mistakes with minimal consequences.

What were your favourite memories of student life back in NUS?

I had a lot of fun back in school. I was President of the NUS Sports Club in my third year and I picked up scuba diving in NUS, so I was overall very active in sports. Lab lessons were fun too. We used to make roll-on creams, perfumes and other cosmetics during pharmaceutics lab lessons. We also had pharmacognosy classes where we looked at powders under the microscope and identified plants from their structures. Those were great times.

Based on your own experiences, what advice would you give to the students studying pharmacy right now, especially those who are still not set in their career paths?

I’d tell them three things. The first is that if you don’t know what you want in your career, at least know what you don’t want. I knew dispensing didn’t particularly interest me, so I explored consumer marketing instead, and ended up liking it.

The second is that there’s more to success than a great career. We must define success in a broader sense; in terms of career, relationships and health. Besides your career, you need to know how well you are interacting with the friends and family that support you, as well as balance your physical, mental and spiritual health. 

The third piece of advice I would like to give is to embrace the journey. I would say “enjoy” the journey, but in life there are ups and downs, so it’s hard to enjoy every part of it. But in the end your journey belongs to you and nobody else. Things happen, but we need to embrace it.