Interesting take. Acquiring innovation isn’t just buying pipelines; success depends on integrating external science while preserving what made it valuable.
Great read Mike. We recently worked with BeOne Medicines. One of their most interesting characteristics is that they have completely internalized their clinical development programs i.e. they do not use external CROs. This is making their programs much more agile, rapid, and cost efficient. I suspect large Pharma’s R&D ROI started to decline when they decided to outsource everything. Management turnovers are likely an issue too, with an average 5 year tenure compare to development timeline that can be 10 to 15 years. Changing portfolio priorities kill efficiency, something biotech cannot afford.
I'd speculate that the CROs' advantages have diminished as their costs have risen, because they're now the default, and increasingly PE-backed... If a pharma company has a focused disease area, it's entirely imaginable that, like SpaceX, they can do their own R&D much faster/ better than companies who are tied to CRO timelines...
Interesting take. Acquiring innovation isn’t just buying pipelines; success depends on integrating external science while preserving what made it valuable.
Great read Mike. We recently worked with BeOne Medicines. One of their most interesting characteristics is that they have completely internalized their clinical development programs i.e. they do not use external CROs. This is making their programs much more agile, rapid, and cost efficient. I suspect large Pharma’s R&D ROI started to decline when they decided to outsource everything. Management turnovers are likely an issue too, with an average 5 year tenure compare to development timeline that can be 10 to 15 years. Changing portfolio priorities kill efficiency, something biotech cannot afford.
I'd speculate that the CROs' advantages have diminished as their costs have risen, because they're now the default, and increasingly PE-backed... If a pharma company has a focused disease area, it's entirely imaginable that, like SpaceX, they can do their own R&D much faster/ better than companies who are tied to CRO timelines...