Big Pharma goes small
Interesting story from Nature News on GlaxoSmithKline’s attempts at recreating the nimble, fast-moving culture of a small biotech firm within their R & D department. About three years ago they created 40 Discovery Performance Units (DPUs) that are tasked with researching a single, specific problem. These DPUs are now up for their first review. GSK evaluates the progress of each DPU and decides whether to expand, shrink, or shutdown each of the units based on their progress over the last three years.
This is an intriguing way to combat the bare pipelines that a lot of Big Pharma companies are facing now. It remains to be seen what this type of internal competition and short time frame will mean for progress within the company. The article is also lacking specifics on the rationale underlying the decision making by GSK executives. For example, what type of progress is required for expansion/contraction? How much? Is part of this based on what is promised in the grant applications? Programs like this, which have been launched by other companies as well, will be watched to see if it is a better model than the current funding structure.
