Innovate or Perish: Managing the Enduring Technology Company in the Global Market

Do Recent Trends Predict Successful Stenting of the Pipeline?

Recent Cancer Success Indicates Innovation Is Alive and Well

Despite the often misguided and ill-informed external perception of a profit-before-all industry, especially when litigation opportunities appear ripe, the biopharmaceutical industry has much to be proud of in recent years. This is particularly true in areas such as cancer.

Small-molecule drugs such as Gleevec (Novartis) and Velcade (Millennium) and antibody drugs such as Herceptin (Genentech-Roche), and Erbitux (Immclone-BMS) have begun to make inroads into changing the face of cancer from a disease you used to “die of” to a disease that you “may die with.” For each of these drugs there is a fascinating story surrounding the trials and tribulations of bringing these new medicines through the tortuous path from an idea on the back of napkin to the clinical and commercial reality of an effective therapeutic. Although still modest in some cases, these drugs literally save and extend patients lives. With our collective very short attention spans, it is all too easy to fail to fully appreciate that these are great feats of ingenuity and creativity. Each drug required a decade or more of development, with minefields of concept failure, technical failure and cash constraints at every turn. It goes without saying that in the absence of a strong patent estate on the composition of matter, method of treatment, method of production and manufacturing, and the like, none ...