New Approaches to Pharma R&D: Evolving strategies to rejuvenate R&D efficiency

With industry consolidation, the economic downturn, and an increasing threat from generics, pharma companies are coming under greater pressure to fill their pipelines with innovative drugs. However, despite the costs and risks involved in drug development, the pharma industry is finding new ways to streamline the R&D process in an effort to increase efficiency and output.

GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and AstraZeneca have the largest preclinical and clinical drug pipelines, each with approximately 200 candidates in development as of March 2009. In terms of volume growth Genentech's pipeline grew the most in terms of percentage points, almost doubling (up 95%).

Over the period 2006/09, the average growth per therapy area was 9.4%. In terms of percentage points, the therapy area experiencing the largest growth in pipeline candidates was ophthalmology, while cardiovascular pipelines saw the largest decline, indicative of Pharma's shift towards niche markets and personalized medicines.

The number of pipeline deals made during 2006/08 have steadily declined. However, with Biotech finding it hard to fund R&D at present, and with many companies going bankrupt, this will affect Big Pharma in the longer term, which is increasingly downsizing internal research becoming ever reliant on external sources.

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