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AstraZeneca's Pangalos On How He Turned Around R&D Productivity

 
• By Alexandra Shimmings

As head of AstraZeneca's global research and early development arms Menelas Pangalos has, in the space of eight years, boosted AstraZeneca's pipeline productivity from below industry average to one of the best, at a fraction of the cost. He talked to Scrip about how he effected this transformation using his "5R" framework, and what he needs to do next.

Menelas (Mene) Pangalos
AstraZeneca's Mene Pangalos has turned around R&D productivity • Source: AstraZeneca

When Mene Pangalos first joined AstraZeneca PLC as head of its Innovative Medicines and Early Development Biotech Unit in 2010 he was charged with turning around a pipeline that had become a byword for unproductivity. He embarked upon a root and branch reform of R&D that has now produced a pipeline viewed by some analysts as one of the most exciting in the industry. And what's more, he's spending less money.

Pangalos revealed the first details of his prescription for the company's ills –a five dimensional framework for decision making that is now the cornerstone of the company's R&D strategy – in a highly cited 2014 paper in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery that surprised many with its candour about what had gone wrong, and what it would take to put right

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