In 2020, Covid-19 hit and changed the world in many ways. With the success of the deployment of the first Covid-19 vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech, the demand for Covid-19 vaccines have increased rampantly. Understanding this demand, AstraZeneca, a global biopharmaceutical company with a revenue of $26.6 billion (2020) joined forces with Oxford University to provide a not-for-profit vaccine to help fight against the virus. In order to be successful, they had to make every cent count. So how did AstraZeneca make it happen?

• Risk

As the demand for vaccines increases, the need to focus on delivery speed becomes more apparent. Generally, in order to ensure a successful vaccine development, companies need to spend years investing and mitigating risk in phase 3 clinical programs as well as setting up manufacturing capacity around the globe. However, to accelerate the project, AstraZeneca had to take many risks and invest a substantial amount and resources into ensuring that they are able to develop the Covid-19 vaccine as fast as possible while not compromising on quality. 

• Complexity

As the project timeline accelerates, so does the complexity of the project. Clinical trials had to be managed while manufacturing capacity was simultaneously ramping up as well. In addition, customers such as governments of different countries are also making the project more and more complex when they seek AstraZeneca for vaccines. This is because each country has its own regulatory requirements and compliance framework in which AstraZeneca has to adhere to. 

• Visibility

There were universal pressures to this project as the global demand for vaccines continued to increase. Colleen Dixon, the Head of Biopharmaceutical Project Management stated that “It’s a fishbowl to the nth degree to be on a project like this, where you literally have presidents of governments calling and asking, 'When am I getting my vaccines?’”. This has amounted to increasing pressure towards them as the stakeholders are expecting results as soon as possible. 

AstraZeneca realized the need for creating a project management office (PMO), and therefore used PMI’s A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) as a framework for the creation of their PMO department.

Under the pressure of time, AstraZeneca’s PMO team prioritized four key roles:

1. Integration of schedule and budget

2. Contract management

3. Team process guidance 

4. Risk management

“The PMO put the structure and resources in place to allow the technical teams to focus on the deliverables in the midst of great complexity, a pandemic and under extreme pressure.” 

- Tonya Viillafana, Infection Global Franchise Head

Due to time constraint, the AstraZeneca’s team led by Dixon searched internally among the existing 80 project managers instead of externally. Dixon staffed the vaccine team with people who had worked on government contracts or vaccine projects in the past. A new project manager was hired externally as Dixon couldn’t find someone with enough experience in both vaccine development and government contracting internally. 

Tina Guina, a former employee at the US government Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) was hired to serve as the lead global R&D project manager for the vaccine project. 

As compared to other AstraZeneca projects, Guina would not be carrying out the usual project manager role where she would have served as a relationship manager with the external partner or customer, negotiating the contract with support from project staff while also managing the project. This is because in this big and complex vaccine project, it was impossible for the project manager to carry such a broad role and therefore the responsibilities were divided with the team, allowing her to focus primarily on managing the project team.

To resolve the challenges faced with working on projects of this magnitude, especially with the government, they established the government contract management function within the PMO. It was essential to have a separate office that could enable the focus on contract deliverables rather than running the project and managing the team, as it really takes a different mindset as compared to the standard project management practices within the company. 

The project faced changing circumstances as governments across the world lined up to become customers. As the number of customers increased immensely, it also had to secure agreements with contract manufacturing organizations (MCOs) in various geographies to ensure they have necessary production capability. Guina noted that knowing when to adapt is crucial and that knowing when to push, when to pull, when to work offline with somebody, and when to try to pull a team together to discuss things are crucial to a successful project manager and subsequently the project.