در جستجوی روش های نوآورانه برای ارزیابی پروژه های "تحقیق و توسعه" دارویی

This paper is a conceptual paper that examines a new integrative evaluation approach for pharmaceutical R&D projects. It describes recent changes in the health care economy and the underlying scientific and technological revolution that has markedly altered the business environment in which the pharmaceutical industry operates. Changes in cost and technology resulting from managed care organizations, marketing, generic drugs, new drug development risk, and scientific and technological evolution forced us to think of a new way to evaluate R&D projects in the early phase of the project. These changes have placed increased emphasis on the need for improvements in technology management methodologies. A real options approach, especially when combined with other project risk management processes, offers a significant improvement in project selection and review, and resource allocation decisions.

The decade of the 1990s has been a period of turmoil for the pharmaceutical industry as it has faced the dual challenges of radical changes in health care economics and in science and technology (Agnew, 2000). Meeting these challenges has brought a major consolidation of the industry through a series of mergers and acquisitions that a few large firms now dominate the industry. However, the cost savings resulting from the elimination of redundant cost centers and the economies of scale achieved by these structural changes are no guarantee of long-term success (Carr, 1998 and Kearney, 1997). These insights have placed new emphasis on the development of management tools and practices to compete more effectively. Adapting and implementing project management tools, techniques and principles will play an important role in this process. The pharmaceutical industry has been using project management techniques and methodologies for some time, but overall its development and impact are behind that of other industries (Byers, 1989, Krusko and Cangemi, 1987, Murphy, 1989 and Foulkes, 2000). In large part this has been due to the inherent difficulties in managing R&D projects. The development of new technology has an inherent unpredictability that has kept it outside the domain of conventional approaches to project management (Sheasley, 2000).

The competitive landscape in which the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry operates has changed radically due to increasing cost pressures as a result of the rise of managed care organizations and to a scientific/technological revolution that has changed the process by which drugs are developed. It is generally recognized that R&D will play a major role in the response to these developments. Long-term success in this environment will require superior management skills. Managers will not only have to be attentive to costs, they will also have to manage technology much more effectively than they have in the past. Project management and risk management are playing an increasingly important role in technology management. An important development in the past few years has been the recognition by managers that “Much of the value of R&D is embedded in options” (Boer, 1999). Integration of this concept with other decision analysis and risk management techniques is bringing major improvements in technology management.