How To Lead A Moonshot Collaboration: Lessons From Over A Decade Of Competitors Working Together

By Andy Lee and Janice Chang, TransCelerate BioPharma

This piece reflects the perspectives of TransCelerate cofounder Andy Lee, who led Merck’s global clinical trial operations until his retirement in 2025, and CEO Janice Chang, who has spent more than a decade advancing the non-profit’s efforts to build a better future for clinical research and patients waiting for new medicines. 

When TransCelerate launched more than a decade ago, few expected a collaboration among direct competitors to last, let alone grow into a durable, trusted organization. The numbers were seemingly against us: Most consortia struggle to survive beyond two years, typically dissolving once their founding champions retire or member companies deprioritize their involvement. Ours not only endured but matured into something that continues to impact how the industry approaches shared challenges.

As leaders who have been part of TransCelerate since its earliest days — one as a founding member and one now guiding the organization as CEO — we've seen what it takes to build and sustain a collaboration of this scale. Success came from bold decisions, steady governance, and a commitment to trust and transparency that was renewed over and over again. While our story is specific to TransCelerate, the lessons apply to anyone seeking to bring together stakeholders who don't typically work side by side.

Why A “Moonshot” Collaboration Requires A Different Mindset

A decade ago, R&D leaders were grappling with drug development processes that were slow and complex, and with a growing recognition that the industry needed to modernize how they conduct research. Development timelines stretched 12 years or more. Each company  wrestled with the same operational hurdles on its own.

The average tenure of an R&D head was only a few years, which meant any progress we made risked disappearing as leadership changed. If we wanted to improve the way the industry operated (and still be in our seats long enough to see that work take root), we needed a different approach. That created both the urgency and the opportunity for something new.

TransCelerate’s founding members focused on practical improvements that no single company could tackle alone. Competition made perfect sense for molecules and portfolios. The challenges, however, on which the founders focused — and that TransCelerate has tackled since — did not touch upon any areas in which the members competed but rather common problems that could only be solved through cooperative efforts.

There's a saying that captures our approach: If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We chose to go far.

It required a willingness to experiment with a new model, absorb criticism, and stay anchored to a common mission even when the path forward wasn't clear. From the outset, we treated TransCelerate as a bold endeavor — one that demanded maximum courage. This framing helped the effort attract people who were eager to challenge norms rather than defend them.

And it was that mindset that set the tone for everything that followed.

What It Really Took To Build Confidence Across Companies

Trust is often described as something that grows naturally over time. In our experience, it had to be engineered deliberately from day one.

We knew that if we wanted teams to collaborate effectively, we had to model that behavior ourselves. We shared candidly in the areas of focus, named the elephants in the room, and admitted mistakes. And perhaps most importantly, we created a safe structure for honest conversation.

Part of that came from having strong legal guidance from the outset. With clear guidance, we knew what we could safely discuss and how to create space for candor without crossing legal boundaries. Rather than slow us down, this clarity did the opposite; it freed us up.

Another essential ingredient was active facilitation. Collaboration doesn’t flourish just because people are talented. It flourishes when meetings are thoughtfully run, quieter voices are invited in, disagreements are surfaced early, and teams feel safe being vulnerable. The early management team — then and now — played a crucial role in fostering that atmosphere.

We also created what you might call a dual environment. Formal meetings had agendas and tight timekeeping, but we also built in tea breaks, early arrivals, and parking lot conversations afterward. People who might hesitate to share a half-formed idea in the full group could test it out with a smaller circle first. That informal space proved just as important as the structured sessions.

Early Wins Kept Belief Alive

Every moonshot needs early evidence that the model works. Without it, belief fades, and stakeholders retreat. To demonstrate value quickly, we structured most of the initial portfolio around what could be accomplished in the first 12 to 24 months. From an extensive “shopping list,” five ideas stood out for their:

• High potential impact
• Broad relevance across companies
• Achievable timelines

We deliberately parked longer-term, more speculative projects for later. Choosing focus over ambition was one of the most important early decisions.

Just as importantly, we established clear goals, solid metrics, and transparent project plans. Success meant ideation, but it also meant execution. When teams delivered early outputs, the credibility of the model grew quickly. And that credibility became oxygen for the next stage of work.

Sustaining The Work: Turning Inspiration Into Something That Lasts

Many attempts at cross-company collaboration collapse because they rely on passion alone. Passion gets you started, but discipline keeps you standing.

For TransCelerate, discipline showed up in multiple ways:

• Governance: Fair, transparent decision-making routines that prevented dominance by any one company
• Scope management: A constant focus on pulling projects back when they drifted beyond their original mandate
• Co-leadership: Pairing leaders from different companies to ensure balance and prevent any organizational bias from creeping in
• Financial clarity: A dues-based model that ensured sustainability and reinforced shared ownership
• Dedicated talent: Companies contributed portions of their experts’ time — true subject matter expertise, not symbolic participation

At a pivotal moment in those early years, the collaboration also needed someone who could translate ambition into operational reality. That is where Dalvir Gill’s leadership played a defining role. As TransCelerate’s first CEO, he brought the structure, financial discipline, and organizational rigor required to stand up an independent organization. Founding members often point to this moment as a turning point, when a bold idea became a functioning institution capable of delivering consistently and earning long-term credibility.

We also embraced a discipline that many organizations resist: sunsetting projects. Ending work that wasn’t delivering impact, despite the effort invested, was difficult but essential. It emphasized that our commitment was to value creation not to activity for activity’s sake.

Culture Is The Asset You Must Protect Most

As TransCelerate grew, we faced a question that every maturing collaboration eventually faces: How do you scale without losing the culture that made you successful?

Our answer was to grow deliberately as opposed to aggressively. Rather than scaling past what the structure could handle, the focus stayed on onboarding mission-aligned companies and reinforcing the behaviors that defined the culture: thoughtful facilitation, genuine openness, humility, and active collaboration with regulators, patients, sites, CROs, and many others.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence of durability came later as new leaders stepped into roles once held by the founders without disturbing the culture. Knowledge transferred and behaviors carried forward. The organization evolved without losing its core identity. That continuity is rare and deeply gratifying to witness.

None of this would have been possible without the people behind the work. The dedicated TransCelerate staff provided facilitation and institutional memory, while member companies consistently committed time, expertise, and leadership. That collective effort, often alongside full-time roles elsewhere, is what sustained the collaboration year after year.

What We Would Do Differently

While we are proud of TransCelerate’s longevity, it didn’t come without learning moments.

Looking back, we would have engaged certain stakeholders even earlier, especially patients. We would have articulated our value proposition more boldly from the start, and we would have acknowledged sooner that humility and focus are strengths in collaboration. You can’t solve everything, nor should you try to. Staying focused is a form of respect for the mission, for the contributors, and for the companies trusting you with their resources.

Advice For Others Seeking To Build An Enduring Collaboration

If we could distill a decade of experience into guidance for others, it would be this:

1. Courage is required at the start. Skepticism and criticism will come early and often. You need leaders with conviction to push through that initial resistance and establish that the common mission is worth the effort.
2. Trust must be designed, not assumed. Legal structure, transparency, active facilitation, and modeled vulnerability create the conditions for candor. You can't just hope people will open up. You have to build the environment that makes it safe and productive to do so.
3. Deliver early value: Early proof points keep stakeholders engaged long enough to see longer-term potential. Pick projects you can complete in 12 to 24 months and build from there.
4. Use governance to maintain fairness and speed: Clear routines eliminate power imbalances and keep work moving.
5. Protect your cultural DNA as you scale: Expansion only works if the core behaviors that made the collaboration effective stay intact. Add members thoughtfully, onboard deliberately, and don't sacrifice culture for scale.
6. Remember that value isn't just measured in outputs: Some of TransCelerate’s most powerful benefits were intangible: the network, the shared confidence, the speed at which we mobilized during COVID-19.

More than a decade later, we've seen how collaboration among companies, even ones that compete, can reshape what's possible for an entire industry. The real moonshot wasn't just solving operational problems; it was proving that competitors could collaborate effectively to solve common problems over the long term. And we remain convinced that when organizations choose to collaborate with purpose, they can move farther and faster than any one of them could on their own.

About The Authors:

Andy Lee is a founding member of TransCelerate and a retired global clinical operations executive. During his career, he led worldwide clinical trial operations at Merck and held senior leadership roles at Sanofi, Genzyme, and Pfizer. He helped shape TransCelerate’s early strategy, governance, and project portfolio and served on its board as Treasurer.

Janice Chang is the CEO of TransCelerate BioPharma Inc. She has been part of the organization since its inception in 2012 and now leads its mission to advance collaboration across the clinical research ecosystem. Her leadership is grounded in a patient-first philosophy shaped by personal experience and a commitment to improving access and representation in clinical trials.