Alcon has become an assembly line

Devolution of Big Pharma from a knowledge based to an industrial efficiency based enterprise
Big Pharma is d(evolving) into more of a Frederick Taylor(ish) type organization that is run along the lines of an automobile assembly plant rather than a knowledge based enterprise. This is understandable given that an ever increasing proportion of drugs in big pharma originate from small, start-up innovation based organizations where the thought leaders, idea generators and scientists (not technicians) reside. All that remains to be accomplished at big pharma is fast turnarounds, sound project management and execution (submission to the regulatory agencies)- all hallmarks of Taylorized industrial efficiency.
In that context, the Big Pharma industry would probably do well to consider elimination of all R&D related jobs and instead only focus on the 'downstream' process of drug development. However, even in this area - that comprises mainly clinical trial management - there are CROs' that can execute with greater efficiency. Could it be - that in the future - there would be no role for Big Pharma to play in the industry at all? After all, if the chain of events encompassing small startups to CROs' is more effective in bringing medicines to market, what is the necessity of Big Pharma at all?

 

SM, PR, and others in PRM make sure that nothing can be developed quickly and efficiently, they make all decisions large and small and turn the teams around constantly. It is the biggest micro-managing joke of the whole industry and none of them were every any good at team level so they have no idea what they are doing. We forget though that MD's know everything!! Anybody that has ever seen a real governance process laughs at these as*hats who have ultimate authority coupled with a flashback to '70's management style. SM clearly reads HBR as all his 'new' process have been straight out of HBR articles, funny though he can't lead or manage any of them and he and PR's house of cards is crumbling around them. SM, how did it work out cutting R&D down to 300 SOP's? Yep, those millions of dollars paid to Quintiles were for vapor and serious non-compliance. WHAT A JOKE!!!

SM & PR how is that employee survey? How about another one?

 

300 SOP's? Novartis added at least 150 in the last two years alone. Your Plateau must not be updated.

 

Fear and forced Taylor(ish) maniacal adherence to the clockwork 8-5 routine is not conducive to - and even inimical to - knowledge workers. In a digital and information age where ideas can be generated 24/7, it does not make sense to insist on a 8-5 routine. Genuine knowledge workers in R&D will not respond positively to such anachronistic management.

Knowledge management requires - first and foremost - an acknowledgement of the unique idea generating abilities of the employees; then leaving them alone. Knowledge workers will more likely sign an employment agreement that is conditional to "....one patent a year; independent peer reviewed ideas that contribute significantly to the company's intellectual property...." than to a mundane, monotonous 8-5 culture.

R&D is not here to sell - they are here to make sure that the medicines that they improve or invent - for the most part - sell themselves. Differentiate the true intellectual producers from the NDA/ANDA/MAA writing scribes - otherwise they will leave - as most of them already have.

It does not take a degree in management from Harvard or MIT to discern this.

 

Leave you cry baby! All the real talent already split, can't you get a new job???

 

Taking this line of thought further - big pharma cannot lay off thousands of R&D personnel (all of them purportedly engaged in earth-shattering discoveries), because it has a large a powerful lobby that sells this very research as being earth-shattering (see my earlier posts on where the 'real' research emanates from). The moment it starts laying off these (for the most part -useless and non-productive) "scientists", the carefully crafted PR myth of 'blockbuster' research will fall to pieces. Big pharma has become a prisoner of its own philosophy.

In my opinion, there is absolutely no reason why 10% of income (averaging to about 4-6 billion dollars) for big pharma be allocated to R&D. This is simply money wasted to keep up appearances. Most of the block-buster molecules originate from small start-ups. Big Pharma simply licences and sells them - for which it can just as well hire cheap foreign scribes for getting the right paperwork submitted. As regards the argument of 'basic research', most of that is done at Universities or non-profit institutions. The recently manufactured QbD argument holds only when profit is under threat due to batches/product being of sub-standard quality. The profit margin in Pharma is of such magnitude that there is no driving necessity to embrace this (hence its adoption as namesake only - to provide numerous reports and modules on QbD in submissions).

Be that as it may, Pre-Novartis Alcon was less predatory, more patient focused and less hypocritical than the present Alcon division of Novartis.

 

The head scribe they hired in regulatory is hated everywhere he has been, took a run down group and made it worse. Kind of leader who totally backstabs his people when they are not present and never communicates as he has all the answers, total coward. Have to agree with you lots of high level bad hires by Sabri and Peter and money down the drain need to clean house in R&D, no packages for these mis-managers/micro managers, just pink slips!

 

I was in meeting with him a while back and he disagreed with everything his own people had said multiple times...... What a tool!

 

Perhaps the current management will continue to work and deliver results BECAUSE big pharma does not need knowledge workers any more - they can (and have been for a long time) licence(ing) drugs from small/medium start ups or universities - where all the knowledge has fled. I see big pharma being increasingly populated with bureaucrats, engineers (not scientists), scribes and 'regulatory experts' and small pharma with the true knowledge based scientists. In that respect, perhaps that is why big Pharma (including the Alcon division of Novartis) is bound to become even more of an assembly line in the near future.

The regulatory agencies are partly to blame for creating this huge sector that prima facie produces nothing of value but just acts as a stock exchange broker to un-necessarily drive up the cost of life saving medicines so that its army of (largely) useless people can be kept 'employed'.

If the regulations were to change so that big pharma were mandated to share (payout) more of the (projected) profits from in-licensed medicines with the 'innovator' even before clinical trial commencement (regardless of the outcome), innovative start ups would be less at the mercy of the stock market. This would drive more innovation as stability for knowledge workers increased. See my article on fool.com on a "Robin Hood tax on big pharma" in this regard.

 

perfect example of what you are saying is how Valeant is going to take over ophthalmic space, first Ista/B&L, now Allergan, yes they can buy their way to market leader in the space, and then bid against Alcon/Novartis for anything new.

 

Wow! The person using all of the fancy words and punctuation must have stayed up all weekend writing his intelligent essays. How about this? Never use quote marks unless it's an actual direct or indirect quote from a PERSON. An old fashioned google search will explain this in the first article you click on. Put that in your pipe and smoke it you sanctimonious asshole. Good day.

 

lol.... Someone pee in your Wheaties??

 

No, I had eggs this morning.

 

Thank you for the MLA crash course on this. Who knew drug reps. Could speak outside of their talking points? Good job.

 

Calm down.

The italics are worse than the quote marks. Must be a PhD MBA. They all think pretty highly of themselves.

 

If Capital can buy knowledge - as part of a job contract or employee agreement, the employer retains the rights to any patents and/or intellectual property generated by the employee - then it should be only fair that a percentage of the royalties/income arising out of the application of the patent/intellectual property come to the employee.

Big Pharma could (and should) therefore modify R&D employee contracts so that fixed salaries are reduced and 'commissions' introduced along the lines of royalties/income from patents and/or intellectual property generated by the employee. This will accomplish two things. One; it will value most of the useless so-called R&D employees less (their actual worth) thus freeing up capital to be invested in more knowledge producing activities (such as funding small pharma and in-licencing drugs) and two; it will encourage innovation by the few intellectuals and reward them appropriately.

This represents a path to management using a reward system. Fear (and hence the current management personnel and systems prevailing in the Alcon division of Novartis) will no longer be necessary as a 'motivator'.

 

Yep, you have it all figured out, company takes all the risk so a cubicle bound weenie like you can blue sky patents of which a fraction are only ever of any value and you should reap the rewards of them paying you and taking all the risk? If your so bright why don't you go start your own company, produce your own IP and sell something of value? Oh that's right, your a cubicle dwelling geek who only has courage in anonymous posts.

 

The German/Swiss Psyche has predominantly had a penchant for efficiency. Efficiency does not equal innovation.

 

Porsche.

 

Whenever an employee spends more time and effort justifying (to 'upper management'), why a particular experiment(s) /line(s) of reasoning / research path(s) needs to be undertaken - than the time required to actually execute that particular experiment(s) / line(s) of reasoning / research path(s) - that company is on a downhill slope as regards innovation. It is a matter of time before the demise.

Good ideas and passion are not algorithmically compressible, not bean countable/calculable and not amenable (or predictable) to accounting, P/E ratios and/or Call/Put ratios. These are non-quantifiable assets that Fredrick Taylorish management (such as the one in place from Novartis at Alcon) cannot come to grips with - and never will.

Talent management cannot be left to bean counters and HR personnel. Eventually, Alcon will be spun out - when the Talent has been bled dry and there are no more increasing profit margins. When it is a smaller, more nimble company, again driven by knowledge and talent (maybe in another 5-10 years), it will be a pleasure to work there again.