Pharma outsourcing lowers costs but has significant downsides, according to the New England Journal of Medicine (and reported by the New York Times).

According to the NY Times, an article about the globalization of clinical trials published in The New England Journal of Medicine ”raises questions about the ethics and the science of increasingly conducting studies outside the United States — when the studies are meant to gather evidence for new drugs to gain approval in this country.”

Read the complete article here.

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In the May 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review, retired GlaxoSmithKline CEO Jean-Pierre Gamier recommends drug companies dramatically alter their research models.  Many companies still operate under a “pyramid” setup, with scientists cubbyholed in their areas ol expertise. “Something happened on the way to the new century,” Gamier writes. “Employment multiplied by 20. The pyramid became a monster, and everything suffered,” Instead of resorting to radical outsourcing, Gamier suggests building “constellations” of small, independent research units. Glaxo now has 12 research centers focused on disease areas, each with its own CEO, and there are no more than three management layers between the chief and key scientists.

Via BusinessWeek 15-SEP-08