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III.
Change Starts in R&D |
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R&D has always been the fundamental business driver of the Group with heavy investment continuing and even increased. The corporation has given R&D a strong mission: to generate a wide range of innovative, high-value-added products in all areas of in vivo imaging with new product launches at least every two years in all major markets. |
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To meet these objectives, Bracco's management realized that a fundamental reorganization of the R&D structure and culture was indispensable in the medium term. The first target for reorganization was development. |
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The objectives of the change in development were |
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to speed up development times through better organization and decision processes |
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to balance national requirements more efficiently against global development and product standardization |
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to better integrate changes in markets, medical needs, instruments and pharmaeconomics into the development process |
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to plan and control resources on a corporate level |
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to allow prioritization of projects and their timely termination. |
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The question of how best to organize corporate Discovery activities could be asked only after the process of acquiring discovery groups had been consolidated. This was in 1995 when the Bracco Group found itself with three research centers (Switzerland, Italy, and the U.S.), each managed independently with different approaches to Discovery. At this point an inventory of research activities and resources worldwide was generated. The result revealed that, although Bracco probably had the best contrast media researchers worldwide, the output of innovative molecules was low. The ratio of the total cost of Discovery to the total cost of R&D was too high. The targets for change in Discovery were identified as |
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a new changed process of Discovery |
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the avoidance of duplication of Discovery programs |
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the development of better processes for identifying lead development candidates |
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a method of accounting for all resources in well-defined programs. |
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IV.
Stepwise Approach to Introducing Change into the Development Organization |
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To assist the reader in better understanding the need for a prudent introduction of change, we have to come back to the background of Bracco. |
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