PA is uniquely placed to help research groups review and improve their work because our teams are typically staffed with ex-industry experts who combine their scientific experience with management, consulting and other specialised skills such as decision science, IT architecture and change management.
The technology
IT strategy and programme reviews undertaken for major clients have renewed and focused their programmes, typically achieving a 20% cost reduction. The key to success has been the use of intensive workshops with the clients' research teams to help surface and prioritise their issues and opportunities before turning to the detail of current and future technology use. The internal technical teams have then been involved in creating a fully costed, realistic and integrated programme plan for delivery of change that respects corporate standards, delivers 'quick wins' along the way to deeper transformation, and earns the trust of both users and their management.
We have helped global pharmaceutical teams to develop coherent information and technical IT architectures, based on analysis of the shared needs of users to support decision-making and material logistics. Helping discovery management leverage their major investments in HTS and uHTS, our process simulation specialists have helped transform 'discovery factories' through application of lean manufacturing approaches to material management.
Process design
Other consultancies offer to save cost through introducing standard worldwide processes. PA first asks the question: 'what really needs to be standardised to maximise the value of international and inter-site performance - and against what disparate, therapy-specific objectives?'
Working with analytical specialist teams on laboratory information system design, and with method specialists on in-silico predictions, ADME, toxicology, HTS and other specialised methods, we have helped clients to quantify and so prioritise the benefits of change. Drug discovery is very different from manufacturing, sales order processing or other repetitive services processes, due to the variety of work and emphasis on bringing the right information to the point of decision.
Our unique capability in R&D performance assessment and improvement, at the interface of science and business, has helped our clients to estimate and optimise the relative contributions of time and effort saving, pipeline quality improvement, and earlier attrition. Our drug discovery process improvement consultants have experience of process and organisational modelling from a range of assignments and can transfer the skills of process thinking to the client team. We have unique approaches to assessing the value of better decisions in drug discovery processes, based on a patented simulation technology (ARBITER).
Managing project and programme risk
In our extensive work with biotechs and other new product development organisations which place a premium on rapid time to market, we have helped to open the eyes of project teams to the risks that they face, and introduced a culture of open and active risk management into their organisations
Improvement initiatives for long-term value potential
PA is itself a successful incubator of new technology, spanning the full range of consulting from insight to implementation. This gives us the credibility and hands-on experience to support and when necessary challenge internal discovery improvement initiatives. Often, goals are not clear and not quantified, and therefore improvement initiatives have insufficient pace or focus, or are reacting to 'yesterday's problems'. PA project managers have rescued many important yet failing projects and programmes; they neither bring nor leave behind political 'baggage' and so can quickly build trust and a new consensus on what is required.
Further information
For further information please e-mail: healthcare@paconsulting.com
