There are probably more barriers to internal collaboration in the pharmaceutical industry than any other. A new study highlights these barriers and offers some solutions. The result is that pharmaceutical companies can begin to develop and execute collaborative models that improve research effectiveness and enable increased innovation.
R&D budgets have nearly doubled over the past decade. However, the number of new chemical entities (NCEs) introduced to the market each year does not reflect that increased spending.
Over the past decade, the number of NCEs introduced has varied little until dipping noticeably in 2000. Unless pharmaceutical companies change how work is performed internally, they will find it increasingly difficult to fuel the double-digit earnings growth that has become an industry expectation.
A recent study performed by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) suggests that to optimise R&D investments and create more sustainable value, pharmaceutical companies should focus on improving internal collaboration across traditional boundaries within the organisation.
The study, aRx for pharmaceutical companies: internal collaboration is the key to improved innovation', is authored by Jeffrey Jung, worldwide health industry leader at the IBV, and Andy Wang, consultant with the IBV's life sciences and pharmaceutical sector.
The common barriers
Jung and Wang identify three common barriers to internal collaboration process, organisational and technological:
* Process. In most pharmaceutical companies, divisional boundaries have confined scientists' collaborative work to their own networks, while the linear, segmented structure of the discovery process has made it difficult to deploy resources across therapeutic and functional areas, and to encourage scientists to look beyond their own projects to the goals of the R&D organisation as a whole. Lengthy managerial approval processes for resource allocation have prevented collaboration from happening when it is most beneficial. There are few mechanisms for communicating and capturing good ideas most never reach management which discourages scientists from brainstorming and collaborating with their colleagues.
* Organisational. Scientists enjoy the autonomy and individuality that their research affords. Many feel that it is a waste of time to focus on issues not directly related to their work. Traditional incentive systems that discourage constructive criticism, as well as policies that make it difficult for scientists working in different therapies to communicate and collaborate with one another, exacerbate the problem. In addition, lack of clear and commonly understood goals across the organisation encourages an individualistic mentality that ignores opportunities for collaboration.
* Technological. Technologies used today to facilitate communication in small project teams do not typically have the capability to connect people across the organisation. Databases are often disconnected, and many companies lack a standard platform that supports both discovery and development applications. Most companies lack decision-support technologies with the ability to identify areas where critical knowledge is needed to solve a problem. Concerns about security inhibit collaboration by limiting access to sensitive information to a chosen few.
Once the business benefits and barriers to collaboration are understood, pharmaceutical companies can begin to develop and execute collaborative models that improve research effectiveness and enable increased innovation. The IBV has identified four models that companies can use to foster greater collaboration: intra-therapeutic, inter-therapeutic, R&D, and community of practice.
Each model helps achieve specific R&D business objectives. For example, the intra-therapeutic model brings together scientists biologists, chemists and pharmacologists in the same therapeutic area who work across different scientific disciplines. The inter-therapeutic model enables biologists, chemists and pharmacologists/toxicologists in different therapeutic areas but often the same scientific discipline to work together. In the R&D model, scientists and preclinical and clinical development professionals such as clinical research associates, data managers and project managers work together in a collaborative environment. The community of practice model fosters a collaborative community of scientists and clinical trials professionals by exposure to a common class of problems and a common pursuit of interests.
Choosing the right option
According to Jung and Wang, whichever option a firm chooses to implement, it is imperative that the company is sensitive to the organisational difficulties that change can create. So companies are advised to identify key obstacles to change and begin to mobilise buy-in and support as soon as possible in the change process in order to make collaboration abusiness as usual' as quickly as possible.
Once collaboration becomes a corporate priority in day-to-day R&D operations, pharmaceutical firms will want to measure collaboration benefits against corporate business objectives. So outcome (or production-oriented) metrics are a must for assessing quantifiable benefits such as reduced time in development. Organisational (or process-orientated) metrics chart intangible benefits from collaboration, such as employees' adoption of an intellectual capital system or increased social interaction among scientists and clinical trials professionals at corporate research symposia.
In order to better understand how collaboration can help pharmaceutical companies innovate, industry executives are advised to begin by assessing their firm's readiness to adopt a more collaborative approach and deciding where and when to begin to prepare the organisation for change. A nine-strong list of questions are suggested which will help executives take the first step toward implementing a collaborative model of their own. The list includes questions such as:
* How flexible is the current discovery process: does it allow scientists to work across organisational boundaries to discover new compounds and improve drug discovery effectiveness?
* How do management processes and reporting hierarchies support or thwart the bubble-up of new ideas?
* Do current security measures serve to protect knowledge, or isolate it?
By assessing how collaboration can create benefits that map to organisational weaknesses and implementing a collaboration model that strengthens the company from the inside out thereby changing the way a company works pharmaceutical firms can begin to bank on their ability to innovate.
The authors conclude their report by warning that increased collaboration does not happen overnight. Whatever internal initiatives pharmaceutical companies undertake to improve the way they approach drug discovery, there will be challenges ahead. But this need not be an uphill battle with focused ingenuity and expertise, the road to collaboration can be shortened.
For more on how IBM can help with this process, email bva@us.ibm.com and visit www.ibm.com/services/strategy.
