IF THERE’S AN ELEMENT OF FAILURE, TRY TO FAIL FAST

AstraZeneca’s research turnaround is unique in global drug history. What is the secret sauce?

I became chairman in 2012 and decided to replenish the pipeline. So, we hired Pascal Soriot (the company’s Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer). He and his team have done a much better evaluation of the projects we have. He not only brought discipline in the process, but also sharp decision making, and unsentimental decisions on which projects have to go. If there’s an element of risk or failure, then try to fail fast. By doing that, you free up resources for projects that we are standing behind.

In 2012, we spent almost 90 per cent of our R&D internally. Now, overall, what we are doing in our R&D with small or medium size companies, if you add transactions by molecules selling projects (joint molecule development projects), then the number is prob ably 50-50. So, a combination of much better decision-making and opening up has meant four-fold productivity of new drug discovery. That is the remarkable