Efficiency vs. Innovation: Finding a Way to Achieve Both at Once

Posted on Aug 9, 2010

The whole country has its ear turned toward Washington, eagerly listening for how we’ll be affected by the myriad proposed disruptions to healthcare policy. Notwithstanding the legitimate concerns of patients for access to affordable drugs, of taxpayers for funding big government-managed programs, and of employers for balancing the added costs of insuring staff, life science companies will face a whole different set of challenges, regardless of how the cards fall in the Senate and House.

Inevitably, the industry as a whole – from pharma to biotech to device – will be even more hamstrung than in months prior by pressure to perform at lower costs while still making medical breakthroughs. It’s the age-old battle between innovation vs. efficiency, fought by nearly every company in every industry in the history of business. But never on such a grand scale with such heavy-hitting global repercussions at stake.

So is there a way for drug and device makers to come out on top? To squeeze efficiency from every single minute and every single dime while still innovating the next big life-saving breakthrough? If want to keep the industry from crumbling—and dragging worldwide health standards down with it—we have no choice but to find a way.

Luckily, advancements in clinical research are charging ahead at a mile a minute—becoming more available and more widely accepted every day. Considering the proportionally massive amount of R&D resources swallowed by clinical trials, this could be the ticket to pharma’s survival. After twenty years of designing and conducting trials, nothing is more clear to us than the necessity of efficiently fostering innovation WHILE innovating new ways to operate more efficiently. This means that, for a drug developer to successfully compete in this tumultuous market, it’s got to break up with the old ways of managing clinical trials. Replace rigid, pre-determined protocols with flexible yet bullet-proof processes that allow for constant gains in efficiency. With this mantra, our sponsors finish trials faster and enter the market sooner – freeing up amazing amounts of resources for hunting that next breakthrough product.