Pharmaceutical R&D in an era of managed healthcare: using integrative teams to produce enduring competitive advantage

Medical technology organisations are faced with greater performance pressure in the new managed healthcare environment. In particular, pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) organisations are expected to create new and useful therapeutic treatments with greater resource constraints than ever previously experienced. We explore how pharmaceutical R&D organisations are changing the way they manage the research process in response to changing organisational and environmental constraints. This paper suggests an integrative team approach to the efficient and effective management of pharmaceutical R&D in a managed healthcare environment. We view integrative teams as an important means of increasing R&D productivity and producing competitive advantage.

Keywords: pharmaceutical research and development, managed healthcare, teams, capabilities, competence