Abstract
Ethical pharmaceutical companies must manage their project portfolios actively to maximize return on research and development (R&D) investment. Research (discovery) must be organized and managed to meet, if not exceed, the target number of new active substances as development candidates each year. These numbers are governed by corporate business plans, the sums invested in R&D, and the very high failure rate in development. A mix of high cost-risk/return and lesser cost-risk/return new active substance projects is recommended. These need to be balanced with projects for the development of new indications and/or new formulations of patented medicines, projects for new formulations of standard unpatented medicines, and licensed-in materials falling into all these categories.
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