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Abstract

Speed in drug development is increasingly recognized as being key to creating and sustaining a competitive advantage within the pharmaceutical industry. The long duration of clinical development and the enormous potential cost of delays indicates that even a small percentage of time savings on activities with a long time-base may translate into substantial revenue gains. Inter-company comparisons suggest that some organizations are faster at development than others, but do not suggest where inefficiencies lie, or how time can be saved. We suggest the use of iterative work study principles to determine the optimum way of performing key medical development processes and show how this can be linked to measures of individual and departmental productivity.

Keywords

Clinical development Time-based competition Work study

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Logistics-Based Approaches to Reducing Clinical Development Times

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