The development speed paradox: can increasing development speed reduce R&D productivity?

Dennis W Lendrem; B Clare Lendrem

doi:10.1016/j.drudis.2013.09.002

The development speed paradox: can increasing development speed reduce R&D productivity?

Drug Discov Today. 2014 Mar;19(3):209-14. doi: 10.1016/j.drudis.2013.09.002. Epub 2013 Sep 16.

Authors

Dennis W Lendrem¹, B Clare Lendrem²

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Cellular Medicine, Medical School, Framlington Place, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE2 4HH, UK. Electronic address: [email protected].
² Institute of Cellular Medicine, Medical School, Framlington Place, Newcastle University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE2 4HH, UK.

PMID: 24051396
DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2013.09.002

Abstract

In the 1990s the pharmaceutical industry sought to increase R&D productivity by shifting development tasks into parallel to reduce development cycle times and increase development speed. This paper presents a simple model demonstrating that, when attrition rates are high as in pharmaceutical development, such development speed initiatives can increase the expected time for the first successful molecule to complete development. Increasing the development speed of successful molecules could actually reduce R&D productivity - the development speed paradox.

MeSH terms

Drug Design*
Drug Industry / organization & administration*
Efficiency, Organizational
Humans
Models, Organizational
Research / organization & administration*
Time Factors