Exclusive Life Science Feature
W
W
hen I sat down with Eli Lilly (NYSE:
LLY) and Company's chief medical officer and coleader of the company's Development Center of
Excellence, Timothy Garnett, it was shortly after the
drugmaker's annual investment community meeting where bankers grilled the leadership team with
questions. Although sensationalistic headlines of
Lilly's recent Phase 3 trial failures (e.g. the antidepressant edivoxetine) may have attracted the eyes
of the uneducated, those of us in the industry know
that long-term success in drug development — like
investing — requires patience and perseverance.
That's why it should come as no surprise that when
I asked Garnett what he is doing to speed up clinical
trials he responded, "Sometimes you have to slow
down in order to speed up." Indeed, a counterintuitive notion when you consider Lilly will be losing
patent exclusivity for another one of its blockbusters,
Evista, this March. Yet during our interview Garnett,
a 20+ year industry veteran, made a strong case for
following this paradox (slowing down to speed up) if
improved productivity and performance is your goal.
SLOW DOWN TO SPEED UP
Businesses fearful of losing their competitive advantage make the common
mistake of spending too much time and resources seeking ways to pick up
the pace, when instead they should try slowing down. Here's why. A Harvard
Business Review (HBR) study of 343 businesses revealed that companies that
embraced business-accelerating initiatives in order to gain an edge ended up
with lower sales and operating profits than those pausing at key moments.
Firms that "slowed down to speed up" improved their top and bottom lines,
averaging 40 percent higher sales and 52 percent higher operating profits over
a three-year period.
These findings appeal to Garnett who revealed Lilly's average lifetime development cycle for a molecule is about six months longer than the industry
average of 12 years. The company wants to shorten its clinical development
February 2014
LifeScienceLeader.com
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