On measuring and optimizing productivity in pharma

Just a short introduction to my colleague Dennis Lendrem's excellent introductory article on what went wrong with the pharma R&D strategy of the 90's. Dennis' article was published in ChemistryWorld of the Royal Society of Chemistry and can be found here.

The 90's witnessed a relentless activity in the pharmaceutical industry with the only goal of bringing new drugs to the market fast (and at any cost) to maximize the period of patent protection. Many processes were implemented in parallel, assuming all would eventually work. The general outcome was financially disastrous as most molecules reaching the final stages turned out unsuccessful for various reasons. Dennis discusses the metrics that matter in the R&D process, a highly complex activity where multiple metrics should be taken into account for process optimization.

"Data driven decisions are only as good as the data driving the decisions".

Full article here.