R&D: A Merck in Progress

That was the collective vow sworn by Big Pharma last December following Pfizer's $1 billion–down–the–tubes withdrawal of the cholesterol compound they had touted as the most important drug of the decade. The question is, What's the right organizational construct to support innovation—or at least to stop Phase III failures?

The large-cap pharmas are all carrying out interesting experiments in how they do R&D, hoping to save time and money at no cost to quality. With Januvia, its novel type 2 diabetes drug, Merck has shown that it can be done. With a new CEO, who believed in bringing all the voices in the company together as one, and the implementation of an integrated new R&D model, Merck got Januvia to market in record-breaking time. Now, a mere six years after it was born, the drug stands to earn $762 million in sales.

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