The Change in R&D Management at Eli-Lilly
When Dr. Watanabe took over the R&D at Eli-Lilly, the critical factor in its profitability was the long R&D time per product to market, which cut into the profitable protected period during which generics could not be created. This severely reduced the initial profits while the company had a monopoly on the drug, and the long term profits gained by creating a commanding market share before competitors could go to market.To resolve this, the separation of the two development teams for Zyprexa and Evista was a strategy which overcame the long development tine without violating the strict FDA rules for testing. The cross functional team Watanabe developed for both efficiently overcame the rigidity of the long established team methods which had spread participants over several projects. While any team member worked on the Zyprexa or Evista project he or she was committed to that project only. This resulted in a problem in other projects who then lacked the expertise of the members drafted for the new projects. However, it was profitable, since the two new products were deemed correctly to be potentially highly profitable new products. The time shaved off development by using this team structure far outweighed the losses incurred i
While the cross functionality and the isolated and autonomous heavy team structure for these projects worked well during the R&D phase, it damaged other teams which lost the expertise of those members. The decision of how to further utilize team members needs to take into account this factor. The critical R&D phase being past, the company needs to heal the wounds in other projects and try to help them get back on track, especially since this structure may not work for all the development projects at the company. Future projects need to be carefully considered for how they will affect resources also before any decision is made to start new ones. The cost of these two projects to other projects can be justified, but the transition phase is past and the rest of the company needs to be considered carefully. A blend of the methodology and theories presented in the chapter seems to be the best course for the future of Eli-Liily, since no one method is deemed applicable to all of its projects. However, it should be reiterated that future projects must be carefully considered in the light of their cost to current projects as any extra stress must be clearly and carefully examined before embarking on a new project. Exp
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Approximate Word count = 821
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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