Novartis's Research Experiment

Against the trend, Novartis has dramatically increased its discovery infrastructure because, unlike most of its competitors, it believes it can cut R&D attrition. Drug research fails, its R&D execs believe, because it oversimplifies heterogeneous diseases. Instead, Novartis is testing drugs early in rare diseases that might be models of broader conditions. The proof-of-concept idea isn't new, but Novartis is exploiting it more extensively than anyone else, in virtually all new programs.