Category: 3. Business

Blockchains are public databases. That’s an immediate roadblock for large institutions like banks, whose clients largely don’t want their balances and payments history open to prying eyes. Now, the crypto giant Circle has partnered with the blockchain Aleo to launch a “private” version of its stablecoin called USDCx, which will obscure transaction histories, Howard Wu, cofounder of Aleo, told Fortune.

ADI IGNATIUS: I’m Adi Ignatius.

ALISON BEARD: I’m Alison Beard, and this is the HBR IdeaCast.

ADI IGNATIUS: Alison, there has been a lot of talk about whether our institutions are up to today’s challenges. So I’m talking about schools, I’m talking about companies, I’m talking about other organizations that really continue to be run essentially as they were 100 years ago when our economic and social needs were very, very different. I’m particularly interested in how companies are structured and whether they’re set up to succeed in today’s really fast moving business environment.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And I think this is a problem that we’ve been trying to solve for years, right? Reorganizing to be more agile, more experimental and more digital.

ADI IGNATIUS: That’s definitely happened. Our guest today, Jana Werner, argues that most companies still retain an organizational structure that yeah, may have evolved, but is still too rigid to make it in this world. And the authors use a metaphor that the ideal modern organization should be like an octopus with tentacles that work separately, but also together with distributed intelligence, sensory awareness and adaptability.

ALISON BEARD: I like that. Octopuses, I’ve been told it’s not octopi, seem to be having a moment in film and TV and books. They do have big heads, but I guess the legs are the real engines powering them through the ocean. So is this about finally finding a way for companies to reduce hierarchy once and for all and create autonomous but still connected teams like those legs?

ADI IGNATIUS: So it might be. It’s definitely about breaking down bureaucracy and it’s about an obsessive focus on what really matters, which is customer needs. So that’s the advice of Jana Werner, executive and residents of enterprise strategy at Amazon Web Services and co-author with Phil Le-Brun of the new HBR article, Become An Octopus Organization, as well as the new book, The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation. So here’s my conversation with Jana.

I’d like your analysis of what’s wrong with corporations today, so let’s start with that, what is wrong with our organizations?

JANA WERNER: My co-author, Phil Le-Brun, and I found working in large organizations, helping to advance and transform them, and now working with a lot of large companies in our day jobs currently, that they essentially still are factories. They’re based on the models of Frederick Taylor and co, a bit of a rusting construct built on standardization, specialization, control, individual performance focus, compliance, essentially predictable outcomes. This used to work, the idea of creating efficiency was a way to operate. But these models no longer work, they’re built on a foundation of permission, permission to innovate, to speak up, and they’re designed to de-risk and be efficient.

Yes, we are trying to evolve. There’s a lot of great new practice and practical examples out there, Silicon Valley, for example, and some organizations have evolved like this, the Apples, of course, of the world and Amazons of the world. But many of the larger traditional organizations I work with, the majority, actually, are finding it hard, and they do it in pockets, but not to the point that we would like to inspire organizations to do.

ADI IGNATIUS: It sounds like companies think they have made progress, think they have… We’re adopting the Silicon Valley style. But your point is it’s just tacked on to these traditional structures that need a pretty dramatic change. So your idea is to inspire companies to pursue a new approach, which you call octopus, to become an octopus organization. Talk about what is an octopus organization.

JANA WERNER: We start from the point of view that how we operate and how we engage and what companies and customers need today has changed so much. Today’s success depends much more on building genuine trust with customers, with the employees you work with, with a broader set of stakeholders as well. Work is so much less transactional, it’s cross-disciplined, new technology comes up.

So the idea for us is to say you need to move a bit away from command and control, because you can’t command and control your way to exceptional outcomes through learning new ways of operating and new technology. So it’s about creating connection, about creating agency, more than this permission-setting culture we currently have, and then designing companies that can thrive in the current complexity. So a bit from the metal tin man suit to a living organism, and the octopus was one that came to mind for many reasons.

ADI IGNATIUS: I recently interviewed the global managing partner at McKinsey, who said in his conversations with CEOs all over the world, I’m paraphrasing, but basically, no one is happy with their organizational structure. They feel that it’s too complicated, it’s too matrixed, people can’t figure out how to get anything done.

Now, you’re sort of talking about a reorganization, which is daunting for companies that are already feeling they don’t have a grip on the organization now. But in what way will this simplify or lubricate the business of innovation within companies to adopt a structure like what you’re talking about?

JANA WERNER: I would probably not so much call it a structure, I would call it a mindset, a way of thinking and a way of operating, of living differently. We’ve seen a lot of restructures, and most of them cause more challenge or often scarring than they cause an actual improvement of productivity and comfort for people to work in it.

The idea is more about how can you push decisions into the organization to people who are close to the customer, who are close to the problem. It’s about all these amazing people that we hire, and then actually tell them what to do instead of tapping into their knowledge and their experience. How can you switch them all on so they all come every day to work to say, “What are the problems we’re solving? How can I solve them in ever-better ways? And how can I help advance and adapt my organization so it stays lean, we fight against this natural buildup of bureaucracy of layers of extra things, and we keep focusing on the customers, not on inward things, and we keep thinking about how to innovate for those customers.

ADI IGNATIUS: I think there are probably a lot of companies that think, yes, we are customer-centric, because we say that, because we say it every day. So how do you get from mouthing the words, we’re customer-centric, to actually being that?

JANA WERNER: I love that question, because I work with organizations that say, “We put the customer at the heart of everything we do,” but then they, for example, you look at their budget, and 80% of their budget is actually spent on what we call keeping the lights on, on infrastructure, on internal change. So their money doesn’t talk the way that they think they are working and a lot of them are inward-focused.

So the switch is quite challenging, and the organizations that do that well have their leaders engage with customers. So instead of thinking, they have use proxies, they use proxy metrics, like net promoter scores, instead of using opinions of, I’ve done this job for 30 years, I know what my customers want, they still go out and speak to customers.

We’ve spoken to Indra Nooyi, she was the former CEO of PepsiCo and is now an Amazon board member, she used to ride Pepsi delivery trucks and go in restaurants to see what was going on. So leaders stay close, they do call listening. They understand they need to dive deeper into the data they get from customers and not believe the abstract proxy metrics, like net promoter scores. They hear anecdotes and they follow those anecdotes to figure out what is not quite right and how do we serve customers better. And they push decisions of how to serve customers and solve problems to those people in their orgs that are close to them.

ADI IGNATIUS: But is that the key? I mean, the key to this can’t be to ride a delivery truck once in a while if you’re the CEO. But is it what you just said, about empowering the frontline people to listen and to respond to customer needs?

JANA WERNER: Exactly. And that means giving them the opportunity to think about how they solve problems for their customers and not pushing those decisions up the chain, and enabling them, giving them the technology, we talk a lot about AI now, instead of clamping down on it, giving them the technology to solve problems in new and different ways for their customers, giving them the innovation freedom.

I just worked, last week, I visited the transformation team of a car manufacturer, a struggling one, and they’re under so much pressure that all innovation ideas need big business cases, big proposals, massive behind-the-scenes arguing and negotiating that people get buy-in. And then, these big innovation proposals get so big and to the board that they have to be signed off, and when the board has signed off, of course, everyone has to jump at it because the board has given attention.

So there’s no more room to innovate small and do things. And they said, “We used to go down to the basement, the engineers, and work on new cars. None of this exists anymore.” And that’s the opposite of what’s needed.

ADI IGNATIUS: So let’s talk about the octopus metaphor. So the idea of distributed intelligence, sensory awareness, adaptability. What was the moment, the aha moment maybe, that convinced you that the octopus is the right metaphor, the right model, for a modern business?

JANA WERNER: I saw an amazing movie called My Octopus Teacher, most people probably know it, and it got me curious about the creature. And I studied more about it and I learned how absurdly sophisticated their ability is to adapt through things like shape-shifting, they can change the texture of their skin, they have an unbelievable capacity to learn. They can even alter their RNA, so they can create new molecules depending if they’re in hot or cold water, and they do that within a day so they can adapt to their environment.

And the whole idea was, can we give people a word, a simple way of looking at it to say, “This is what we’re looking to do”? And most importantly, they have distributed intelligence. My 10-year-old daughter told me they have neural clusters in each of their arms, so they don’t just have a central brain, but they have decentralized intelligence. So the idea is, how can we give people an imagery, a metaphor, to think differently about their organization, and this creature is just that.

ADI IGNATIUS: So to stick with that, then you have the tentacles, I hope I have the right word, that are working separately, but obviously are also working together. All right, so let’s talk about that within companies. I’ve heard professors say, “Yes, yes, yes, we hate silos,” but silos are actually useful for getting things done. How do you balance the fact that we need things to work independently, while also contributing to the fuller whole organization?

JANA WERNER: I think this is an ever-questioned problem, the idea of how do you balance autonomy with alignment, and sometimes you go over the top one side and you go backwards and have less alignment and a bit more autonomy. The idea is to think about leaders providing the clarity, the context of what the challenges are, what are the problems worth solving, what are the few things that are important to enable people to then go and solve for those things, and that creates a mix of having context, having clarity of what a few priorities are, and giving people the freedom and the space to experiment in that space.

And in the companies that do this well, they actually accept that there will be a bit of duplication and there will be a bit of messiness, but we’d rather accept this for the advanced gain of more innovation and more speed and more customer centricity, but it is always a trade-off.

The silo problem for me is much more pronounced in large and traditional organizations, where leaders sit in an executive team and they’re not a leadership team, they’re just a team of leaders who come together. And they, for example, decide in an executive team something like, we want to become more customer-centric, and then the CFO goes away and says, “Okay, we need to get more efficient so we can cut prices.” The CMO goes away and says, “We need a new customer experience.” The CIO goes away and says, “We have to change our technology like this and that.” So the people who sit together in the executive team are more connected to their silos and try and solve problems in their silos than trying to connect an outcome as a leadership team and then horizontally connect and develop these outcomes.

ADI IGNATIUS: So at this stage, would you describe Amazon as a successful example of an octopus company? I think of them as, since Jeff Bezos creation – we are customer obsessed. I think under Andy Jassy they’re trying to cut out a lot of the bureaucracy, a lot of the stuff that slows them down in the middle. Have they become what you’re talking about? Are they on the path to becoming that? Can anybody ever become the ideal that you’re talking about?

JANA WERNER: I think it’s good to have an ideal. Many companies have mixed some tentacles and still some old tin men rusty armor. Some have more of an octopus, some have less, and I think the more successful companies have more of these traits. And I think Amazon has many of the qualities, and in many parts of the organization, acts in this way, in this metaphor.

So we have principles that we follow that layout values. We try to push independent product teams, we call them two pizza teams, who are as broadly autonomous as possible and can be close to their customers, can make their own decisions, like little startups. Of course, in every organization, there’s a risk that the company calcifies and goes into the antipatterns, like pushing decisions up the hierarchy, making decisions too slowly, starting to become involved in their internal proxy processes rather than thinking about customers, that risk exists. We call this a shift from day one culture, being like a startup, to a day two culture, which is this more rigid, slower organization that’s not an octopus. And we keep consciously fighting against this day two culture, because it’s not something you change once, you have to continuously make sure you go back to this octopus-like way of being.

ADI IGNATIUS: On the question of innovation, a lot of companies pursue dual transformation approach. That’s been true at Harvard Business Publishing as well. We’ve published a book by Scott Anthony on this, where your next generation innovation, inventing the future is separated from innovation at the core. It sounds like you’re suggesting a different approach to innovation. Is that right?

JANA WERNER: Yeah. We see a lot of organizations that do innovation labs because they feel they’re struggling to truly drive innovation through the DNA of the organization, but that puts innovation to the side. It gives the ability and the resources to a few people, and those few people are often not the broad organization that is actually close to the customers and to the problems to solve. And that’s risky because a lot of this innovation then doesn’t reach the customer, it stays proof of concepts, and it’s hard to bring these abstract ivory tower and removed innovations into the organization to stick and scale.

So the recommendation we have is actually giving broad access to innovation mechanisms, ways of working, and enabling organizations across the piece to innovate. For example, Amazon Prime, the idea was created by someone who was filling spreadsheets about delivery and about how to start thinking about connecting and bundling offerings. The idea is push this to anyone in the organization rather than just a few who think they understand how to innovate, because innovation comes from experimenting, from being close to the problems, from trying things and from having ideas.

ADI IGNATIUS: What are the structural, cultural signals that leadership can try to create that tells employees that innovation is genuinely that sort of daily obsessive behavior, and not, as you say, a isolated or special event or isolated department?

JANA WERNER: It’s first of all giving them the mechanisms. So for example, at Amazon, we have a method called working backwards, and the broader organization gets the tools to do this and gets the opportunity to create and write ideas for innovation and share them. We expect this in our annual performance reviews, we look at what have you done to look to innovate, to simplify. We share what we mean by innovation. You don’t have to invent the X-ray and you don’t have to invent a new tool for agentic AI. Innovation can be small i innovation, so little things, creating some efficiency, fixing small problems, so that people get out of this fear, paralyzing idea, they have to do something big.

And we also provide the freedom to say, “When you come up with something, write your idea down, take it through the organization. You don’t just have to go up to your boss and ask for permission.” So the idea is give principles where people can realize, this is part of my daily job, put it into the performance reviews, give them the tools, and then celebrate when people come up with innovations, tell the stories, share what they have created so that others realize this is real. We’re not just pretending to say this, we’re actually wanting you to do this.

ADI IGNATIUS: You also write about how there are these antipatterns that need to be done away with or improved. Talk about one or two of them, these antipatterns that are blocking this transformation that you’re describing.

JANA WERNER: In a lot of companies, we start to do a piece of work and we don’t really think about what is the problem we’re trying to solve. We get all this money, we create a big project, and then we go and we start and we try to show progress in this project. The tendency is then to keep developing, keep working on it, because we want to first of all have a bit of immediate gratification that we’re making progress on the project, we want to showcase to our leaders that we’re making progress.

But actually, when we spoke in our interview for the book to Astro Teller, who’s the CEO of Alphabet X’s Moonshot Labs, he gave us the metaphor of the monkey on the pedestal, and he said, “If you want to teach a monkey on a pedestal how to recite Shakespeare, where do you start?” And his view was that most organizations start building the pedestal, so you start, try and make progress, it keeps the team in the comfort zone, you can show off things.

But actually, there’s absolutely no point building the pedestal if you can’t get the monkey to recite Shakespeare. What’s his point? His point is get to know quickly, tackle the most difficult and challenging problems first, and then you get to know quickly. And when you get to know, you celebrate those teams, because they have now freed up resources and time and energy from something they should no longer be working on instead of just keeping going.

ADI IGNATIUS: These are human behavioral issues. You’re not going to do away with every manager, and managers have their areas of control, they have their egos, and that’s the reason for some of what you talked about, you can’t just wish that away. You need committed managers who are doing something productive, so how do you balance this… Okay, everyone is empowered to innovate and to take steps and to make the experiment, how do you balance that with the fact that organizations do tend to create structures and that’s how things get done? I don’t know. I love the idea of it, but how do you do it and how do you make it stick?

JANA WERNER: It requires discipline. Our organizations grow, I think it was Parkinson’s law who came up with this idea that our organizations and bureaucracies grow in our sleep by 5% to 7% every year, because he was a Naval historian, and he found as the British Navy’s fleet became smaller, the number of generals and people working in the British Navy became more. So Parkinson’s law tells us the organizational bureaucracy grows and grows even in our sleep. And organizations that do this well, they take a commitment to say, “We have to constantly groom.”

We know companies like Google, there are leaders who put positive friction into processes that become too big. For example, Google’s hiring process became so big that more and more people were involved in hiring someone, and at some point, a senior leader put positive friction in to say, “You now need sign off from me personally if you want to have more than five people involved in the hiring process.”

It’s like mowing the lawn, you can’t stop. You have to continuously add positive friction where you can and continuously take out this growth of bureaucracy and leadership. We have a beautiful term that my colleague, Phil, came across called, it’s like the body mass index, but it’s actually the bureaucracy mass index. So you can try and measure your wait time, your time of useless activities, and try and work on your body mass index.

ADI IGNATIUS: Okay. So if your bureaucracy mass index shows that you’re too bureaucratic, what do you do? Do you just take out middle managers? What do you do if you identify, or self-identify, we are too bureaucratic, then what’s the first step?

JANA WERNER: We know that leaders rarely understand how work gets done. So it’s often not about leaders trying to drive change from the top, but empowering people to say, and having principles that you also get measured on and rewarded on to say, “Have I invented? Have I simplified?” We call this invent and simplify at Amazon. We have a principle, “Have I consistently looked at how I can do things leaner, how I can take out this bureaucracy?”

It’s even things like, if I want to start a new project, have the mindset of making it smaller, because people tend to take up the time and the resource with bigger spaces. You make a project longer, it will take more time, it will require more resources. So having a mindset of giving people less time, less resource, is a way to reduce bureaucracy growing. Frugality is a way of bureaucracy growing less, and giving people the opportunity to cut that down themselves. And sometimes, it’s little things, like learning how to give tools. For example, a leader not expecting a full PowerPoint presentation about a first draft implementation of a solution, but saying, “I don’t need you to do that. I need you to come and show me the scrappy, terrible, difficult stuff you’re working on, because it creates honesty, it creates less bureaucracy, and it shows us in more real life what’s going on and how far you’re getting with your work.”

ADI IGNATIUS: How are we going to build the world’s best pedestal?

JANA WERNER: You don’t.

ADI IGNATIUS: So what a lot of companies do is experiment at the bottom with the customer, and then if it works, there’s this instinct to scale it, and you started to talk about this before. What’s wrong with that, or what’s the right versus wrong approach to scaling experiments that seem to be working?

JANA WERNER: We talk about risks of scaling. We like the word spreading. We believe that things that work well that are developed in a certain part of the organization, if they’re really that good, they naturally spread. It means that you don’t create a push top-down, but people adopt and spread through the organization what works, and that is a much more natural way of change to stick with people, and for people to then also advance because they feel they own it.

Scaling is a risky concept because it runs the risk of robbing people of local ownership. We believe scaling is something you do to offer people something that creates efficiency and speed, everything else is better organized and changed in a natural pull culture.

ADI IGNATIUS: As we’ve been saying, organizations, they have their silos, they have their structures, myself included, we have meeting cultures, nobody wants to take ownership of risky ideas. How do you make this really happen within organizations that have all of these embedded problems?

JANA WERNER: Yeah. We talk a lot about ownership culture and the challenge that a gatekeeper culture tends to create, and we tell the joke of the pig and the chicken. So the pig and the chicken walk down the road, and the chicken says to the pig, “Shall we open a restaurant together?” And the pig goes, “Yeah, sure. What shall we serve?” And the chicken says, “Well, ham and eggs, of course.” And suddenly, the pig stops in its tracks and goes, “You realize I have to be much more committed to that than you.” And sometimes it takes the audience a minute of why that is. But basically, the point we’re trying to make, there’s a difference between those that contribute and those who are really committed and accountable. And often in organizations, we have lots of chickens who lay their eggs, they come to meetings, they have opinions, they want to be involved, they give part sign-offs of something. But it’s really, really difficult to find someone who truly owns something end-to-end and delivering an actual outcome, something meaningful, and making the necessary decisions to achieve it.

And we say, “You need more pigs in your organizations.” Maybe don’t call them pigs. At Amazon, we call them single-threaded leaders. I think at Apple, they’re called directly responsible individuals. But the idea is someone who really gets up and injects energy and urgency into initiatives, is passionate about something, can dive deep into issues, move forward, presses on progress every day. And when companies tell me they struggle to assign single-threaded leaders, then I tell them either this isn’t important enough or you have a prioritization issue.

So surface your chicken behavior, create non-confrontational ways to challenge this passive participation. You can ask politely for the decision, “Do we really need you? Are you here to commit resources? Why are you here?” And of course, then do things like give a chicken tax, so if someone shouldn’t be there as a chicken, make them pay a chicken tax. So there’s lots of ways of making this playful, but it overcomes a massive problem that stagnates organizations.

ADI IGNATIUS: In many ways, you describe what I would say for years we’ve been writing about, this is good leadership, that good leadership isn’t just talking down, but it is empowering others, it’s empowering others to be leaders and to develop leadership capabilities. But there must be something more than just that for this really to succeed. At the end of the day, is it about the CEO or the leader of the company truly understanding the value that you can create by unlocking some of these opportunities? Is it ultimately top-down, you need a CEO who says, “Yes, we’re going to empower. I’m going to let go, people below me are going to let go. We’re going to let go of authority and let people more on the front lines innovate and talk openly.” What is the ideal leadership function here to making this happen?

JANA WERNER: Yeah. One, it’s the courage to do so, and it’s very hard as a leader. Both Phil and I, who wrote about this, have been leaders, and we still find ourselves struggling sometimes to give up ownership because things aren’t done the way exactly how we want them. So it is hard to do that, and that is one part. But the other part that’s really important is creating the clarity so that people can have the context of making the right decisions, of being able to understand which problems are the important problems to solve, and how to go about solving them, and having the freedom and the comfort to do so. And creating that clarity is a really, really difficult task and it’s an ongoing task for leaders. We spoke to the CEO of the London Stock Exchange, named Julia Hoggett, and she says a third of her role is to continuously create that clarity into her team and to keep recreating it.

The other thing then is to push decisions into the organizations and stepping away and becoming more an architect of the system, so not so much working in the system, but trying to let people, when they have this clarity and context, take decisions and do experiments. And I love this, Reed Hastings, he said he prides himself of trying not to take any decisions in an entire quarter. And the last thing that, particularly in our role, Phil and I see, is leaders having to get more curious about technology, and not just saying, “I don’t understand,” they are curious about people, they’re curious about finance, but often not so curious about technology. And the leaders we see that do all of this well, they become curious, they invite us for training sessions, they speak to tech experts and they understand in their ecosystem what’s possible.

ADI IGNATIUS: Leaders in our complex organizations have so many priorities, how do they focus then on what really can make a difference in terms of the kind of transformation you’re describing?

JANA WERNER: It’s all about creating focus. Did you know, by the way, the term priorities only existed in singular until the 19th century, and only then have we started to add a lot and a lot of priorities and went away from a singular priority? If you give people time, they will fill 100% of that time.

So the idea is, how can you go back to focusing, to getting brave and doing and having less priorities? The most impressive example was one of the first interviews my colleague, Phil and I did for a book with Benedict Burn. He’s the CEO of a sportswear company and also an extreme mountaineer. He climbed death zone mountain, so there, above 8,000 meters where there’s not enough oxygen to sustain life. And he told us, as he was driving into Taliban territory to climb his next mountain, he told us a story that most death zone climbers take about five days to climb such 8,000-meter mountains, they take about 50 to 55 kilos of equipment. It’s a lot of equipment to carry.

So he takes a completely different approach. Together, with all his equipment, the clothes he wears and the skis he uses to get down the mountain fast, he only carries 7.4 kilos. So he cuts absolutely everything that isn’t a priority, his shoe laces, he even shaves his eyebrows, cuts his hair. He has absolute focus so that he can take only two days instead of five, go up the mountain and ski back down. And he told us, “This is the relentless focus I also bring to my business.”

So the idea of letting things go, what do we really need, what are the absolute priorities, and getting rid of this tyranny of end. Do smaller things, do a not yet, get rid of the zombie projects that linger around that people fell in love with. And go with something we learned from the CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, a hell yes test. If people don’t say, “Hell yes, we should be doing this,” then it’s probably not something you should do, or maybe not yet.

ADI IGNATIUS: So if listeners are inspired by this, if they say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would like my company to be more like everything you described,” what’s a small, maybe low-risk action that a leader can take immediately to get there, to increase ownership at a team level or whatever it is? What are some things they could do right now?

JANA WERNER: What they can do is start listening and asking more questions than they may be used to, and that’s a bit uncomfortable. And then, again, it’s not about leaders driving change, but pick some of the antipatterns we write about. Look at where people feel uncomfortable, where their shoulders go heavy, where they look away, where they laugh, and follow the compass of where things are uncomfortable or difficult.

Ask about these things, and then give people the opportunity to start fixing these with your support. “What resources do you need? What’s a small thing we can try?” When we’ve tried it, “What interesting assumptions or beliefs that we didn’t even realize we had have we actually uncovered that are holding us back?” So it’s giving the opportunity, this idea of lighting a thousand fires as a leader, to people in their organization, not doing the change yourself, and yourself as a leader becoming more curious and helping create this clarity.

ADI IGNATIUS: Jana, that is great. Thank you very much for being on IdeaCast.

JANA WERNER: Thank you so much for having me.

ADI IGNATIUS: That was Jana Werner, executive and residence of enterprise strategy at Amazon Web Services, and coauthor of the HBR article, Become an Octopus Organization, and of the book, The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation. If you found this episode helpful, share it with a colleague and be sure to subscribe and rate IdeaCast in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

If you want to help leaders move the world forward, please consider subscribing to Harvard Business Review. You’ll get access to the HBR mobile app, the weekly exclusive insider newsletter, and unlimited access to HBR online. Just head to hbr.org/subscribe. And thanks to our team, senior producer Mary Dooe, audio product manager, Ian Fox, and senior production specialist, Rob Eckhardt. And thanks to you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. We’ll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I’m Adi Ignatius.

The boss of Ford has said western carmakers are “in a fight for our lives” against Chinese competition as the US manufacturer agreed a new partnership with France’s Renault.

The two companies said on Tuesday that they would work together on two smaller electric cars, with the first to go on sale as soon as early 2028. They will also look at producing vans together.

“We know we’re in a fight for our lives in our industry,” Jim Farley told journalists in Paris. “There is no better example than here in Europe.”

The rapid rise of Chinese electric carmakers has put enormous pressure on European and US rivals, who have been slower to develop battery-powered vehicles. Manufacturers such as BYD and Chery have gained market share by producing well-reviewed electric cars at much lower costs than western manufacturers.

Producing smaller electric vehicles cheaply has been particularly tricky for European carmakers, who have tended to focus their efforts on larger cars that have space for a bigger battery.

The two cars announced on Tuesday will be based on Renault’s Ampere electric car blueprint but will be designed by Ford and carry the US brand. Renault had previously planned to sell shares of its Ampere unit as a separate company dedicated to electric car technology, but it abandoned that plan last year as investor interest waned.

The companies said Renault’s plant at Douai in northern France would produce the vehicles. The plant makes the Renault 5, an electric car that has won plaudits for its design and relatively low cost.

Ford has struggled in Europe in recent years. Farley announced 4,000 job cuts last year, including 800 in the UK, and cut back planned production of the new electric Explorer and Capri models, citing the “weak economic situation and lower-than-expected demand for electric cars”.

Farley also criticised European electric car sales targets this week, writing in the Financial Times that the continent’s carmakers faced “the world’s most aggressive carbon mandates” at the same time as “a flood of state-subsidised EV imports from China”.

Renault’s chief executive, François Provost, said: “In the long term, combining our strengths with Ford will make us more innovative and more responsive in a fast-changing European automotive market.”

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In a separate development, BMW announced the retirement of Oliver Zipse as the chair of the company’s management board on Tuesday. He will be replaced in May by Milan Nedeljković, who joined the company as a trainee in 1993 and has risen to oversee the company’s production.

The Munich-based carmaker had extended Zipse’s contract in 2023 to 2026, beyond the usual retirement age of 60. As BMW’s boss since 2019, he also had to contend with the rise of Chinese competition, although the manufacturer has performed better than some of its German counterparts.

The Energy Union Task Force (EUTF) met today for a comprehensive discussion on 2 key issues in the European energy landscape: the implementation of the EU Methane Regulation and energy prices. This meeting saw participation from all EU countries and the European Commission, renewing its commitment to the Energy Union’s objectives of delivering affordable, secure and sustainable energy. 

Regarding the EU Methane Regulation, the session provided an exchange on its pragmatic implementation, focusing on 2 important topics: compliance solutions for import requirements and the implementation of security of supply considerations within penalty regimes. The Commission recalled that 2 workable solutions for demonstrating compliance with the importer requirements have been discussed at the last meeting of the network of competent authorities, where competent authorities concluded that these solutions provide credible evidence for compliance. The Commission and intervening EU countries aligned on the importance of establishing penalty regimes that preserve security of supply.

On energy prices, gas prices have been falling on average recently and they stand today at around EUR 27/MWh. This is near the price levels seen before mid-2021, point from which prices started to increase significantly. Wholesale electricity prices stand roughly at EUR 83/MWh on average, with national and regional price divergences across Europe. During the meeting, the EUTF recognised that while the energy crisis has passed, continuous efforts are needed to make energy more affordable. EU countries shared national experiences showcasing strategies implemented to address energy price levels, including as regards the use of two-way contracts for difference and power purchase agreements, the promotion of energy storage, the reduction of taxation levels to electricity and the design of a demand response mechanism that harnesses consumer flexibility.

The task force will continue to meet in 2026 with a view to address the most challenging areas of completing the Energy Union and addressing energy prices. 

Background

The Energy Union Task Force has been established in the Affordable Energy Action Plan and inaugurated in June. It brings together high-rank officials from Member States working on energy and the European Commission, to address topical matters related to EU energy policy. Today’s meeting of the task force took place against the backdrop of the meeting of 4 November 2025, during which the task force members exchanged on possible measures to make energy more affordable and boost the competitiveness of our industry. Two additional meetings took place on 28 November and 4 December, to explain the State aid framework applicable to energy prices and to discuss electricity taxation and its role on energy affordability, respectively.

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United Group B.V., a leading telecommunications and media company in Southeastern Europe, today announces that it has successfully completed an offering of its euro-denominated notes maturing in January 2032 for a total principal amount of €400 million.

The issue price of the notes was par, and the notes have a fixed rate coupon of 6.25% per annum. The notes are listed on The International Stock Exchange.

The proceeds from the offering will be used to refinance existing debt of the group, including the redemption of existing senior secured notes due 2027, the repayment of amounts drawn under the existing revolving credit facility and certain local facilities, and the payment of related fees and expenses. Following completion of the refinancing, net leverage is expected to remain unchanged (excluding expenses in connection with the transaction). The transaction is consistent with the Group’s prudent financial policy and its approach of addressing upcoming debt maturities in advance. The successful offering reflects continued support from the Group’s bondholders and the strength of demand for United Group’s credit in the euro bond markets.

This transaction follows the publication of United Group’s Q3 and nine-month 2025 results on 2 December 2025, which showed year-on-year growth in both revenue and adjusted EBITDAal and a further reduction in leverage. For the first nine months of 2025, revenue increased by 3% year-on-year to approximately €2.0 billion and Adjusted EBITDAal grew by 7% to approximately €680 million, with last-twelve-month revenue reaching €2.7 billion (up 4% year-on-year) and last-twelve-month Adjusted EBITDAal €909 million (up 9% year-on-year). As at 30 September 2025, net leverage based on last two quarters annualised Adjusted EBITDAal decreased to 4.3x, compared to 4.7x as at 30 June 2025, while gross leverage based on last two quarters annualised Adjusted EBITDAal decreased to 4.4x, from 4.8x over the same period.

Stan Miller, CEO of United Group, said:

“This successful transaction is a further vote of confidence from our bond investors and a natural next step following our strong Q3 and nine-month results. It allows us to continue our prudent approach to managing the capital structure, while we remain focused on executing our strategy in our core EU markets and maintaining the positive momentum in the business.”

J.P. Morgan acted as global coordinator and physical bookrunner. BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Crédit Agricole CIB, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, ING, KKR, Mizuho, Morgan Stanley, Raiffeisen Bank International and UniCredit acted as joint global coordinators and bookrunners.

 

• Details three-year outlook with annual mid-single digit top-line organic constant currency growth driven by a consistent flow of high-impact innovation, high-single digit adjusted EBITDA growth and low double-digit adjusted EPS growth, all starting in 2026. Expects further net leverage ratio improvement to <3x in 2027, with a long-term target of 2.0x to 2.5x.
• Expects innovation revenue contribution of approximately $1.1 billion in 2026, with aims to double revenue from ‘Big 6’ blockbuster potential products by 2028.
• Discusses 10+ major innovation products in development phase with 5-6 blockbuster-potential approvals expected between 2026 and 2031. Two in-house technology development platforms contributing to next wave innovation pipeline: monoclonal antibody discovery and immuno-therapeutics.
• Announces intended closure of German animal R&D facility and targeted reduction to manufacturing workforce along with increased investment in Elanco Innovation Laboratories at its Indiana headquarters and continued investments in U.S. manufacturing as we have greater clarity on U.S. tariffs and accelerated USDA regulatory timelines. This includes an accelerated conditional approval pathway for a potential first-in-class immuno-therapeutic major pet blockbuster, expected in the next 2-3 years.
• Announces technical sections complete for Befrena™ (tirnovetmab), the company’s IL-31 injectable monoclonal antibody for canine dermatitis, with expected differentiation in efficacy, convenience and value. Remains cautiously optimistic that administrative review and approval will be complete in Q4 2025.
• Expects $200 to $250 million in adjusted EBITDA savings from Elanco Ascend by 2030.
• Announces restructuring as part of Elanco Ascend to support margin expansion, optimize footprint and further increase innovation capacity. Creates an expected restructuring charge of approximately $175 million, of which approximately $130 million is expected to be cash-based costs. Expects savings of approximately $25 million in 2026 and approximately $60 million in 2027. 
• Reaffirms Q4 and full year 2025 revenue and adjusted earnings guidance.

INDIANAPOLIS, Dec. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE: ELAN) hosts its first Investor Day in five years this morning, marking a pivotal moment as the company further defines its new era of sustainable growth and long-term value creation. Elanco will detail how its consistent Innovation, Portfolio and Productivity (IPP) strategy is designed to guide the company’s transformation to a sustainable growth company, delivering consistent mid-single digit organic constant currency revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA margin expansion, while further strengthening its balance sheet and accelerating cash flow.

“Today is a pivotal day for Elanco. We stand as a stronger Elanco ready for our next chapter as a sustainable growth company,” said Jeff Simmons, President and CEO at Elanco. “As we outline our financial outlook for the next three years, we are poised for significant growth. Our IPP strategy is delivering, our innovation engine is stronger than ever, and our team has built deep, lasting customer relationships that reinforce our confidence in our ability to win in the animal health market. Elanco is well-positioned to continue transforming, building a future where we expand our leadership and achieve consistent, reliable delivery against our priorities of growth, innovation and cash. We will bring high-impact innovation to customers – ultimately driving sustainable shareholder value while making life better for animals and the people who care for them.”

Financial Outlook for Consistent Growth
Elanco will outline a new three-year financial outlook with the expected annual results beginning in 2026, underscoring the company’s confidence in delivering strong, consistent performance:

• Revenue Growth: Mid-single digit organic constant currency
• Adjusted EBITDA Growth: High single digit
• Adjusted EPS Growth: Low double digit
• Free Cash Flow: At least $1 billion over the period from 2026 through 2028
• Net Leverage Ratio: Achieving <3x in 2027, with a long-term target of 2.0x to 2.5x

American Investment Driven by Tax, Tariff and Regulatory Clarity
Elanco today announces continued investment in its U.S. operations, workforce and communities over the next five years. This investment deepens Elanco’s commitment to product innovation, advanced manufacturing and its customers – farmers, veterinarians and pet owners. The company will expand its R&D presence in its new Indianapolis global headquarters and surrounding OneHealth Innovation District, while continuing to invest in its U.S.-based manufacturing footprint. Elanco will further invest in its Kansas monoclonal antibody (mAb) manufacturing facility to support innovation, particularly a major next generation immuno-therapeutic pet innovation. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has granted an accelerated pathway for conditional approval of a novel immuno-therapeutic that has the potential to be a first-in-class major pet health blockbuster, expected in the next 2-3 years.

Additionally, as part of the positive engagement with the USDA, Elanco announces significant progress in the final steps of the approval of Befrena™, its newest potential blockbuster product. Review of all technical sections and label alignment is now complete, with the final administrative review underway at the USDA. Befrena has demonstrated differentiated efficacy in treating dogs with allergic dermatitis and canine atopic dermatitis. In both laboratory and field studies, Befrena has shown to be safe and well-tolerated, offering a dependable treatment option for veterinary professionals and pet owners alike. Befrena will offer important efficacy, convenience and value differentiators. Elanco continues to expect a first half 2026 launch.

In connection with these investments, Elanco expects the 2026 net tariff impact to be immaterial to adjusted EBITDA growth, given additional tariff clarity and a positive offset from an incremental price increase.

The combination of a favorable tax environment from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, regulatory reform resulting in improved timelines for USDA regulatory reviews and greater certainty on tariffs has created favorable conditions for the continuation of U.S. investments in R&D and manufacturing, while bringing key innovation capabilities from Europe to the U.S.

Innovation: Delivering a Consistent Flow of High-Impact Innovation
Since defining its basket of innovation in December 2020, Elanco has repeatedly raised the bar on its innovation target. Elanco now expects this innovation to generate approximately $1.1 billion in revenue in 2026, an increase of over $200 million from $840 to $880 million expected in 2025. 

Looking ahead at Elanco’s next wave of innovation, the company has increased its target innovation areas to eight and added two new major internal development platforms with monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and immunotherapy. Elanco has 10+ major innovation projects with blockbuster potential in development, expecting approvals for 5-6 major differentiated assets from this pipeline between 2026 and 2031. These differentiated pipeline assets represent an unprobabilized potential peak sales value of more than $2 billion – effectively doubling the value of the last wave.

“Over the past several years, Elanco has created a one-of-a-kind innovation powerhouse that has maximized capacity and throughput, delivering a continuous flow of differentiated products,” said Dr. Ellen de Brabander, Executive Vice President of Innovation and Regulatory Affairs at Elanco. “There are more projects and more value in the pipeline than ever, and we’ve added cutting edge in house monoclonal and immunotherapy technology development platforms. We will continue to invest in the capacity and capabilities to bring new solutions to market that help pets live heathier, more active, longer lives and help farmers improve animal health, welfare and sustainability.”

Diverse Market-Leading Portfolio: Positioned for Sustained Growth
Elanco is innovating in large, growing markets, supported by a strong, diverse portfolio. This includes leading growth in U.S. Pet Health and #1 positions in global pet retail and poultry, U.S. beef and swine. Elanco expects to double revenue from its ‘Big 6’ potential blockbuster products from 2025 to 2028 as it globalizes this basket of innovation (AdTab™, Befrena, Bovaer®, Credelio Quattro™, Experior®, Zenrelia™).

Productivity: Driving Margin Expansion and Free Cash Flow
Elanco’s commitment to operational excellence and financial discipline is a cornerstone of its strategy, with a clear path to expanding margins, improving free cash flow and becoming a simpler, more efficient company. The company anticipates meaningful adjusted EBITDA improvement with high single-digit percentage growth, and free cash flow generation increasing through the period.

Elanco is also announcing organizational changes designed to generate approximately $25 million and $60 million in savings in 2026 and 2027, respectively, as part of its Elanco Ascend productivity initiative.

These strategic adjustments include:

• Transforming and Investing in Innovation: A larger, more complex pipeline requires more capacity, new technical capabilities and increased investment. As such, Elanco is expanding its R&D organization in Indianapolis, refining its regulatory structure and proposing the closure of its Germany animal facility. The company also announces a strategic partnership with The Clinglobal Group to substantially expand capacity and capabilities, while being significantly more cost effective.
• Optimizing Manufacturing Footprint: Elanco will continue to optimize its manufacturing footprint to power its pipeline, adjust to future volume expectations and continue the organization’s productivity journey, including reducing workforce in higher-cost locations.

Approximately 600 roles will be impacted across Elanco with 300 eliminated positions and 300 shifted to other areas or locations. The company expects a charge of approximately $175 million, of which about $130 million is expected to be cash based.

In total, the company expects its Elanco Ascend program to deliver $200 to $250 million in adjusted EBITDA savings by 2030, with about 30% achieved in 2026.

“Our goal is clear: consistent, reliable delivery,” said Bob VanHimbergen, Executive Vice President and CFO at Elanco. “We are taking the steps needed to become a more efficient, productive company, ensuring our resources are in the right places to fuel our no-regrets launches and invest in our pipeline while deleveraging and delivering on adjusted EBITDA margin growth. As we move into the second half of the decade, Elanco expects to deliver durable, profitable growth and sustained cash generation while creating lasting value for shareholders.

In conjunction with today’s event, Elanco is reaffirming its fourth quarter and fiscal 2025 outlook, provided on November 5, 2025, other than reported net loss and net loss per share, which will be impacted by the aforementioned restructuring charges.

WEBCAST
Elanco will host a webcast from approximately 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. Eastern Time today, featuring presentations from Elanco’s senior leadership team on the company’s strategic priorities, financial outlook and innovation pipeline – defining Elanco’s new era as a sustainable growth company. Access to the live webcast and related materials is available on Elanco’s Investor Events and Presentations website. A replay will be available on the website following the event.

ABOUT ELANCO
Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE: ELAN) is a global leader in animal health dedicated to innovating and delivering products and services to prevent and treat disease in farm animals and pets, creating value for farmers, pet owners, veterinarians, stakeholders and society as a whole. With 70 years of animal health heritage, we are committed to breaking boundaries and going beyond to help our customers improve the health of animals in their care, while also making a meaningful impact on our local and global communities. At Elanco, we are driven by our vision of Food and Companionship Enriching Life and our purpose – all to Go Beyond for Animals, Customers, Society and Our People. Learn more at www.elanco.com.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including, without limitation, statements concerning product launches and revenue from such products, our 2025 full year and fourth quarter guidance and long-term expectations, our expectations regarding debt levels, and expectations regarding our industry and our operations, performance and financial condition, and including, in particular, statements relating to our business, growth strategies, distribution strategies, product development efforts and future expenses.

Forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the economy and other future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, by their nature, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. As a result, our actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include regional, national or global political, economic, business, competitive, market and regulatory conditions, including but not limited to the following:

• operating in a highly competitive industry;
• the success of our research and development (R&D), regulatory approval and licensing efforts;
• the impact of disruptive innovations and advances in veterinary medical practices, animal health technologies and alternatives to animal-derived protein;
• competition from generic products that may be viewed as more cost-effective;
• changes in regulatory restrictions on the use of antibiotics in farm animals;
• an outbreak of infectious disease carried by farm animals;
• risks related to the evaluation of animals;
• consolidation of our customers and distributors;
• the impact of increased or decreased sales into our distribution channels resulting in fluctuations in our revenues;
• our dependence on the success of our top products;
• our ability to complete acquisitions and divestitures and to successfully integrate the businesses we acquire;
• our ability to implement our business strategies or achieve targeted cost efficiencies and gross margin improvements;
• manufacturing problems and capacity imbalances, including at our contract manufacturers;
• fluctuations in inventory levels in our distribution channels;
• risks related to the use of artificial intelligence in our business;
• our dependence on sophisticated information technology systems and infrastructure, including the use of third-party, cloud-based technologies, and the impact of outages or breaches of the information technology systems and infrastructure we rely on;
• the impact of weather conditions, including those related to climate change, and the availability of natural resources;
• demand, supply and operational challenges associated with the effects of a human disease outbreak, epidemic, pandemic or other widespread public health concern;
• the loss of key personnel or highly skilled employees;
• adverse effects of labor disputes, strikes and/or work stoppages;
• the effect of our substantial indebtedness on our business, including restrictions in our debt agreements that limit our operating flexibility and changes in our credit ratings that lead to higher borrowing expenses and restrict access to credit;
• changes in interest rates that adversely affect our earnings and cash flows;
• risks related to the write-down of goodwill or identifiable intangible assets;
• the lack of availability or significant increases in the cost of raw materials;
• risks related to foreign and domestic economic, political, legal and business environments;
• risks related to foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations;
• risks related to underfunded pension plan liabilities;
• our current plan not to pay dividends and restrictions on our ability to pay dividends;
• the potential impact that actions by activist shareholders could have on the pursuit of our business strategies;
• risks related to tax expense or exposures;
• actions by regulatory bodies, including as a result of their interpretation of studies on product safety;
• the possible slowing or cessation of acceptance and/or adoption of our farm animal sustainability initiatives;
• the impact of increased regulation or decreased governmental financial support related to the raising, processing or consumption of farm animals;
• risks related to tariffs, trade protection measures or other modifications of foreign trade policy;
• the impact of litigation, regulatory investigations and other legal matters, including the risk to our reputation and the risk that our insurance policies may be insufficient to protect us from the impact of such matters;
• challenges to our intellectual property rights or our alleged violation of rights of others;
• misuse, off-label or counterfeiting use of our products;
• unanticipated safety, quality or efficacy concerns and the impact of identified concerns associated with our products;
• insufficient insurance coverage against hazards and claims;
• compliance with privacy laws and security of information;
• risks related to environmental, health and safety laws and regulations; and
• inability to achieve goals or meet expectations of stakeholders with respect to environmental, social and governance matters.

For additional information about the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements, please see the company’s latest Form 10-K and Form 10-Qs filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Although we have attempted to identify important risk factors, there may be other risk factors not presently known to us or that we presently believe are not material that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. If any of these risks materialize, or if any of the above assumptions underlying forward-looking statements prove incorrect, actual results and developments may differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. We caution you against relying on any forward-looking statements, which should also be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements that are included elsewhere in this press release. Any forward-looking statement made by us in this press release speaks only as of the date thereof. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or to revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law. Comparisons of results for current and any prior periods are not intended to express any future trends or indications of future performance, unless specifically expressed as such, and should be viewed as historical data.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This press release contains forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures, such as organic constant currency revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA growth, adjusted EPS growth, free cash flow and net debt leverage. We have not provided related GAAP financial measures for forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures because we are unable to predict with reasonable certainty and without unreasonable effort the timing and impact of certain items, such as restructuring and certain non-cash items, which could significantly impact our GAAP results. These non-GAAP measures are not, and should not be viewed as, substitutes for GAAP reported measures.

Investor Contact: Tiffany Kanaga (765) 740-0314 [email protected]
Media Contact: Colleen Parr Dekker (317) 989-7011 [email protected]

SOURCE Elanco Animal Health

Alert Summary

This WHO Medical Product Alert refers to falsified SIMULECT (basiliximab) for injection. The falsified product has been detected in Rwanda, Bulgaria, and Türkiye, and was reported to the WHO in December 2024 and November 2025.

SIMULECT (basiliximab) is an immunosuppressant medicine classified as a monoclonal antibody. It is indicated for the prevention of acute organ rejection in adults and children undergoing kidney transplantation. SIMULECT is supplied as a powder vial with or without a water for injection (solvent) ampoule for reconstitution, and is administered either as an intravenous infusion or as an injection, usually in a hospital setting.

How to identify the falsified product

This product is falsified because it deliberately misrepresents its identity, composition, and source. The genuine manufacturer has confirmed that the products listed in this alert are falsified. A sample of the falsified product was forensically tested by the genuine manufacturer and found to contain no active pharmaceutical ingredients; instead, it contained ascorbic acid. The genuine manufacturer also identified several visual discrepancies on the packaging:

Batch number: The falsified product shows batch number SFYD2, which is not a valid batch number for SIMULECT. Any SIMULECT product with batch number SFYD2 should be considered falsified.

Folding box and label information: The falsified product label displays the National Drug Code NDC 0078-0331-84. While the National Drug Code (NDC) is a unique identifier for medicines marketed in the United States of America, the label contains other discrepancies compared to genuine SIMULECT packaging.

• The genuine product lists the ingredient dose in milligrams using “mg,” while the falsified product uses “MG”.
• The genuine product lists the country of manufacture as “Product of France” while the falsified product lists the country of manufacture as “Product of Switzerland or France”.

Risks

This falsified product should be considered unsafe, and its use may pose severe and potentially life-threatening risks to patients, including:

• Therapeutic failure leading to organ rejection.
• Inadequate or excessive immune suppression, increasing vulnerability to opportunistic infections.
• Life-threatening allergic or toxic reactions from unknown or harmful ingredients.
• Risk of infection from unsterile injections.

It is important to detect and remove any falsified SIMULECT from circulation to prevent harm to patients.

Advice to health-care professionals, regulatory authorities, and the public

Health-care professionals should report any unexpected adverse reactions, lack of therapeutic effects, or quality defects to their National Regulatory Authorities or National Pharmacovigilance Centre.

WHO advises increased surveillance and diligence within the supply chains of countries and regions likely to be affected by these falsified products. Increased surveillance of the informal/unregulated market, including online platforms is also advised. National regulatory authorities/health authorities/law enforcement are advised to immediately notify WHO if the falsified product is detected in their country. If you are in possession of this product, WHO recommends that you do not use it. If you, or someone you know, has, or may have used these products, or suffered an adverse event or unexpected side-effect after use, seek immediate medical advice from a health-care professional or contact a poisons control centre.

All medical products must be obtained from authorized/licensed suppliers. If you have any information about the manufacture or supply of these falsified products, please contact WHO via rapidalert@who.int.

Annex: Product subject of WHO Medical Product Alert N°6/2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

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