Rebuilding Big Pharma R&D: An Interview With GSK’s Ian Tomlinson

GlaxoSmithKline’s DPU model is industry’s most radical attempt to apply the lessons – and the pressures – of working in small biotech environments. BD and biopharma head Ian Tomlinson discusses what went wrong, and what GSK thinks it’s now doing right.

No large company has done more than GlaxoSmithKline PLC to shake up its R&D organization. Beginning more than ten years ago with the introduction of the Centers for Excellence in Drug Discovery (CEDD) and further breaking down the organization in 2008 with the introduction of much smaller Discovery Performance Units (DPUs), GSK has attempted to fuse Big Pharma stability with biotech culture.

At Windhover’s EuroBiotech Partnering Summit, presented this June in Paris by Elsevier Business Intelligence, GSK’s SVP, Worldwide Business Development and...

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