Pharmaceutical giants have doubled their investments in drug development in the past decade only to see new drug approvals remain constant. This book investigates and highlights a set of proactive strategies aimed at generating sustainable competitive advantage based on value-generating business practices. We focus on three sources of pharmaceutical innovation: new management methods in the drug development pipeline, new technologies as enablers for cutting-edge R&D, and new forms of cooperation and internationalization, such as open innovation in the early phases of R&D. Our findings are illustrated by cases from Europe, the US, and Asia.

Pharmaceutical giants have been doubling their investments in drug development, only to see new drug approvals to remain constant for the past decade. This book investigates and highlights a set of proactive strategies, aimed at generating sustainable competitive advantage for its protagonists based on value-generating business practices. We focus on three sources of pharmaceutical innovation: new management methods in the drug development pipeline, new technologies as enablers for cutting-edge R&D, and new forms of internationalisation, such as outside-in innovation in the early phases of R&D.

The productivity in pharmaceutical research and development faces intense pres sure. R&D expenditures of the major US and European companies have topped US$ 33 billion in 2003 compared to around US$ 13 billion just a decade ago. At the same time, the number of new drug approvals has dropped from 53 in 1996 to only 35 in 2003. Moreover, the protraction of clinical trials has significantly reduced the effective time of patent protection. The consequences are devastating. Monopoly profits have started to decline and the average costs per new drug have reached a re cord level of close to US$ 1 billion today. As a result, any failure of a new sub stance in the R&D process can lead to considerable losses, and the risks of introduc ing a new drug to the market have grown tremendously. Particularly if a company is highly dependent on just a handful of mega-selling blockbuster drugs, the risks can be even greater. For example, Pfizer generated about 90% of its worldwide revenues in 2002 with just 8 products. Any shortfall of a promising late-stage drug candidate would have left Pfizer with a gaping hole in its product portfolio. In order to deal with these risks, many pharmaceutical companies have started to organize their R&D in partnership. In fact, more than 600 alliances in pharmaceutical R&D are signed every year."

Pharmaceutical giants have been doubling their investments in drug development, only to see new drug approvals to remain constant for the past decade. This book investigates and highlights a set of proactive strategies, aimed at generating sustainable competitive advantage for its protagonists based on value-generating business practices. We focus on three sources of pharmaceutical innovation: new management methods in the drug development pipeline, new technologies as enablers for cutting-edge R&D, and new forms of internationalisation, such as outside-in innovation in the early phases of R&D.