R&D Innovation: Climbing Out

The pharma fates have had their nasty sport with AstraZeneca of late. Since February 2006, the British drug giant has had to bury four billion-dollar babies: Galida, its oral PPAR antagonist for diabetes; neuroprotector-wannabe NXY-059, for stroke; the anticoagulant Exanta, for thrombosis; and lipid buster AGI-1067, for atherosclerosis. Each one was a risky, push-the-envelope drug; each one bit the dust in Phase III. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose one late-stage drug may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose four looks like carelessness.

As these embarrassments were playing out in public, John Patterson, tagged to head development in December 2004, was behind the scenes, putting AZ's entire R&D process and products through the pharma equivalent of AA's famous Step 4—"a searching and fearless moral inventory." As he candidly explains in this interview, every team in every therapy area had to make the case for not killing their darlings. It cannot have been a happy time at storied Stanhope Gate.

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