Björn Albrecht

Partner at McKinsey & Company -

Profile

About Björn Albrecht
Björn joined McKinsey & Company in 2003 and is a Partner in its Life Sciences practice, which he leads in France, where he is located. Björn also leads the McKinsey Cancer Center globally (McKCC), which oversees all of McKinsey’s work on cancer-related topics, supporting biotech and pharmaceutical companies, health systems, payors and providers – with the overall aim of making a tangible impact on the lives of cancer patients. Björn’s work covers the whole value chain from early discovery strategies through clinical development, go-to-market and reimbursement for cancer medicines. In addition, he supports health systems leaders and manufacturers in defining “adequate outcome” approaches to cancer treatment and developing innovative collaborations to best serve patients’ needs.

Björn brings a unique combination of scientific background and deep consulting expertise in cancer. Alongside his PhD in molecular oncology (retroviral oncogenesis) from the Comprehensive Cancer Center at The Ohio State University, Björn was a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society post-doctoral fellow at New York University School of Medicine.

Björn founded the McKCC in 2008. The center now
undertakes a high volume of diverse work every year
covering a broad functional spectrum including marketing and sales, strategy, R&D, Corporate Finance and Business Development, Organization, Operations and Digital. The McKCC delivers this client service via a group of 100 experienced colleagues organized in regional hubs on the US East Coast, US West Coast, and in Europe, China, and Japan. Together the team has over 150 years of oncology experience. It is supported by an advisory board of over 20 world-renowned clinician scientists and leaders of professional organizations and advocacy groups, as well as partnerships with expert network providers and a proprietary analytics platform with its own common data models and machine learning capabilities.

Select examples of work Björn and the team have conducted include building a leading pharma cancer organization from scratch; and working with five health systems around the globe to improve colorectal cancer care and reduce mortality. Additionally, the McKCC has been behind some of pharma’s top cancer product launches and has helped biopharma clients significantly accelerate the development of critical cancer medicines. It has also developed machine learning approaches to help design medicines that are more and more personalized to specific patient subgroups The McKCC has also been instrumental in shaping some of the industry’s most prominent partnerships.

Since 2008 the McKCC has hosted a satellite symposium at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Congress. The “McKinsey Cancer Congress Series” symposium now convenes over 200 organizations from the pharma and biotech industries, professional associations, intermediaries and cancer centers.

McKCC’s insights are featured in journals such as The Lancet, on the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP), documenting discrepancies in cancer-survival rates and their respective drivers across geographies. It also published with the Bloomberg International Cancer Coalition in Nature Medicine on the subject of patient-centric trials.

Patient impact is at the core of the work Björn does and what he draws satisfaction from: identifying a new molecular target for drug development; developing medicines more efficiently; and launching medicines successfully with reimbursement so that as many patients as possible can benefit. And at the same time, helping cancer centers deliver better care to more patients with improved clinical pathways and a better patient experience, as well as supporting health systems develop national cancer strategies and ensuring optimal access to care for its cancer patients.

In addition to his Firm responsibilities, Björn has past and current board positions at the Biden Cancer Initiative, Cancer Research UK, the Cancer Support Community, and the Global Access to Cancer Care Foundation. He also manages knowledge partnerships with the Union for International Cancer Control and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer.

Firm Profile
McKinsey is a global management consulting firm committed to helping organizations accelerate sustainable and inclusive growth. We work with clients across the private, public, and social sectors to solve complex problems and create positive change for all their stakeholders. We combine bold strategies and transformative technologies to help organizations innovate more sustainably, achieve lasting gains in performance, and build workforces that will thrive for this generation and the next.