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The central nervous system is the brain and the
spinal cord, the absolute core of our being. There
are billions of neurons scurrying around predetermined
paths. The "wiring” is so far beyond anything
we’ve been able to do that it beggars the imagination,
which is itself yet another of its functions. It
regulates fear, rage, sex, eating, body temperature,
respiration, blood pressure, heart contraction,
and all the senses. In 1986, a Danish company decided
to concentrate on helping it.
H. Lundbeck A/S started out doing anything but
pharmaceuticals. The company sold cosmetics and
rented vacuum cleaners. But in the 1930s, it acquired
a German chemist who brought some interesting formulas
with him, and the company set out on that route.
World War II put things on hold, but by the 1950s
it was the very first firm to bring out anti-psychotic
drugs, targeting schizophrenia. This became the
nugget of the current program, which began in 1986,
when Erik Sprunk-Jansen joined as president. Lundbeck’s
focus now is to combat depression, schizophrenia,
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, epilepsy, multiple
sclerosis and migraines. These diseases are sometimes
called “underestimated diseases.” All
of them have their foundation in the central nervous
system, or CNS.
Sprunk-Jansen earned a Master of Science degree
in chemical engineering at the Technical University
of Denmark in 1960. Soft-spoken and decisive, he
took over a company that did all manner of things,
few of them as well as he would have liked.
“They had a shotgun technique,” he says.
“Now we have a rifle. They had Nicorette, they
had antibiotics. We sold them all. We would all
like to acquire what is worth acquiring. People
want to cover the problem by acquiring something
that hides it.”
Specialized in CNS
Sprunk-Jansen's strategy was to sell off everything
unrelated to CNS disorders. “That is the reason
that we are still Lundbeck, the only company in
the whole world that specializes in full-fledged
CNS. We live and die by it. There’s no exit,”
he says.
The company developed Ciprolex (in the U.S., Celexa,
now one of the most popular drugs in the country)
and rolled it out over a span of years. “We
earned money in one country which gave us the opportunity
to introduce it in the next country, and so on,”
says Hans Henrik Munch-Jensen, a former financial
columnist who is now senior vice president for corporate
finance and communications. Celexa has always been
a success.
Trying to market an anti-depression drug in the
U.S. through an American partner was at first, well,
depressing. The American companies all wanted to
make the drug over in their own image. “We
had more or less given up the idea of making it
into the U.S.,” says Munch-Jensen. It wasn’t
until 1998 that they found the man and the company–Howard
Solomon, Forest Labs–they were looking for
(see
sidebar story on "The Noonday Demon").
Since then, they have increased the sales force
dramatically. “We have now brought the new
generation of antidepressants into the marketplace,”
he says.
Depression
Sir Winston Churchill called it his “black
dog” -- something that hounded him day and
night. Abraham Lincoln said, “If what I feel
were equally distributed to the whole human family,
there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.”
In Washington, city council member John Wilson,
a man who could have been a great mayor, hanged
himself during a bout with his devils. Police estimate
that half of Denmark’s suicide victims were
suffering from clinical depression. One sufferer
described it as “trying to walk through wet
cement.”
What is depression? “I think depression is
almost an epidemic," says Munch-Jensen. "Whenever
you put your finger down in time or place, there
will always be four to seven percent of the population
suffering from it. We know today from statistics
that only 50 percent of those suffering will ever
see a doctor. Of those who do see a doctor, only
25 percent will get appropriate treatment. So there
is a lot of work to be accomplished before we even
have a grip on depression.”
The biggest reason people don’t seek help
is stigmatization. Munch-Jensen says that the stigmatization
is highest in Japan, where calling in sick because
of depression is to lose face.
In the last 20 years, the stigma surrounding depression
has lessened somewhat. It is much more permissible
these days to say, “I’m depressed."
Women used to be able to get away with it, but whenever
a man would say it, people would say, “Pull
yourself together, stop crying; you’re a man,
behave like one." Therefore, only a limited
number of men went to the doctor. This has changed
dramatically, but there are still a lot of people
who don’t get the proper treatment.
Proper medication
When people do take their medication, the normal
recommendation is to stay on it for six months after
you have conquered the depression. But people tend
to stay on it only two months. “That is a big
problem,” Munch-Jensen says. "They think,
'Well, I’m fine,' so they stop. If you do not
take proper care of it, the risk is increasing,
the risk of continuous episodes which increases
by the number of times that you have them.”
Depression is affecting more lives than AIDS. “One
of the saddest things,” says Sprunk-Jansen,
“is that people think that we are selling happy
pills. People ask, 'Why do you produce pills for
people who are just afraid to go to a party?' This
disease has nothing to do with being unhappy.”
As Andrew Solomon says, “Depression is not
the opposite of being happy.”
So, can someone call in sick with depression at
H. Lundbeck, with its 3,000 plus employees, and
not get chewed out? “If a person has depression
here, we will encourage that person to seek medical
advice and encourage them to follow the doctor's
advice, and we will do our utmost and encourage
them to come to work,” Munch-Jensen replies.
“Maybe not an eight-hour day, but to get them
into the work environment. Because the worst thing
that can happen is that you get into this social
isolation, where you don’t go out and mingle.
We encourage them, come on in and do maybe five
hours a day.”
Lundbeck is focused, but it’s not a one-hit
company. It has a new product, Ebixa, for severe
Alzheimer’s. This gives the patient some cognitive
ability; patients are less aggressive and can concentrate
longer. “Small things that make the treatment
of these patients easier,” says Munch-Jensen.
“Primarily, you can save 50 hours a month in
care.” Altogether, Lundbeck makes eight antidepressants,
eight anti-psychotics, and anti-migraines as well.
Migraines
Migraine headaches are a kind of vascular headache,
thought to involve an abnormal function of the brain’s
blood vessels or vascular system. Triggers include
fatigue, glaring or flickering lights, the weather,
and certain foods. The same triggers don’t
always cause the migraine in the same person, and
avoiding triggers doesn't always work. But 90 percent
of chronic headache patients can be helped.
Schizophrenia
The word schizophrenia is less than 100 years old,
but we have evidence of the condition throughout
recorded history. “Dementia” and thought
disturbances are described in detail in a papyrus
from ancient Egypt, the Book of Hearts.
It became known through Plato as “the divine
madness” that also produced prophets. Its symptoms
have caused people to be burned at the stake. Sufferers
hear voices, see flashes of lightning, jumbles of
nonsensical words crash together inside their heads.
It includes delusions -- but it does not describe
persons with “split personalities.”
Lundbeck can soften these conditions. The end result
is that a lot of people feel better, work better,
and quite literally are better because of what Lundbeck
does. To mitigate diseases that cause anguish and
other baleful consequences is not a bad thing on
which to focus.
For more information, please visit: www.lundbeck.com
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