Project Co-ordination

Abstract

By sharing in the universal problem, all pharmaceutical companies compete for resources. Thankfully there always seem to be more ideas than there are funds to carry them out, but this brings its own problems. Particularly over the last decade, the development process has become extended. It is now much more complex and correspondingly more costly. Some of this increase, both in time and cost, can be directly attributable to increased regulatory activity. There are not only delays produced by the need to satisfy greatly increased requirements under the enacted legislation and its regulations, but also those delays introduced through the time it takes a regulatory agency to assimilate the information it has asked for (and been presented with) and come to a decision — four years in some instances. However, the time taken to generate and obtain products has also been increased because much more time and effort now has to be spent on the devising and evaluation of basic scientific methodologies. Increasing amounts of basic research now have to be done to produce each product opportunity. Consequently, for any company to succeed with R & D, the number of projects it can operate at any given time has necessarily to be restricted. It is the responsibility of the research director, or other senior operating manager, in consultation with his commercial and financial colleagues, to assess the projects in the company’s portfolio and to determine which will offer the best financial return to the company within an optimum timescale. Probably one of the most