GGI RapidNews R&D Product Development eZine: Volume 2, Issue 4 - May 4, 2001
GGI RapidNews is published monthly

Each month GGI shares selected R&D survey results with RapidNews readers. One primary purpose of the 2000 Survey was to explore the degree of linkage between R&D strategy and overall corporate business strategy. This month's results are listed below for your interest and consideration:

• The 86% of companies that have stated, or say they can derive a set of company-wide Corporate Metrics, plus the 75% of companies that have stated, or say they can derive a set of R&D Metrics were asked about the linkage between the two respective sets of metrics portfolios. For those companies which can establish a linkage, implying that linked metrics portfolios mean linked strategies, 18% had no linkage. i.e., there were no metrics in common. 67% had between 1 and 5 metrics in common between their portfolios. 11% had between 6 and 9 metrics in common between their portfolios. 4% had 10 or more metrics in common between their portfolios.
  
  
• By dividing the metrics common to the R&D and Corporate Metrics portfolios by the total number of metrics in the Corporate Metrics portfolio, it is possible to derive a "new-to-the-world metric." The new metric is "% R&D Linkage To Corporate Strategy." GGI calculated this metric using both the mean (14%) and the median (17%). The median is perhaps the more reliable statistical indicator for this particular survey question. In either case, it appears that R&D is adequately represented in the company-wide set of Corporate Metrics.

Our next R&D Metrics Survey will be conducted early in 2002. If you would like to participate, please send me a reply e-mail to get on our mailing list.

UPCOMING PUBLIC SPEAKING
The 2001 International Forum on DFMA: Boothroyd-Dewhurst's 16th annual conference will be held this June 4-5 in Newport, RI. Brad Goldense will present a paper based on GGI's 2000 R&D Metrics Survey entitled "Measuring R&D Portfolio Success: Best Practices." GGI's survey explored portfolio selection, management, and review processes; and the related measures that leading companies are using to evaluate their R&D portfolios. The survey queried product success/failure rates and many other attributes of portfolios such as product life cycles. The findings are clear. Portfolio management and measurement techniques are significantly more sophisticated than those of a decade ago. For more information on the conference or this paper, please see http://www.dfma.com/forum/index.html.

NEW WEB CONTENT
Gateways to Knowledge (GTK) Mega US Government Links: If you haven't visited the GTK for awhile, point your browser to http://www.goldensegroupinc.com/gateway/usgov.shtml to see a recent addition to our link categories. We've added a series of government- and government-related links to sources on Department of Defense information; Public Information, like Digital Daily and Federal World; Industry Assistance Programs from the Department of Commerce, Small Business Association and others; Regulatory Agencies, like EPA and FDA; Business Services, like CIAC and NASA; as well as Labor and International Services links. For those of us who tend to think that government should be avoided if at all possible, these sources could prove to be particularly useful. Have a look!

CONFERENCES OF INTEREST
SCPD '01: The Society of Concurrent Product Development, formerly the Society of Concurrent Engineering (SOCE) will have a biotech track at its Fifth Annual Conference on June 6 and 7, 2001 on how Concurrent Product Development improves the drug discovery process.

Drug discovery has moved through important evolutionary steps, and concurrent product development is now a key contributor. Towards the end of the 1980s, pharmaceutical and biotech companies were frustrated with the low percentage of success and poor predictability of drug discovery based on targeting compounds that appeared to be reasonable candidates. The industry moved to a stage-gate process and technology-enabled high-throughput- screening during the 1990s, in a way familiar to product developers in other industries. Each discovery project moved from one stage to the next in vertically (functionally) integrated organizations. This created high costs and long delays, exclusive of regulatory costs or delays.

Today, the biotech industry is looking to concurrent product development as a way to gain competitive advantage, by saving months in development and potentially billions of dollars in expense. Four applications appear especially promising:

1. Cross functional teams
2. Integration of genomics and proteomics technologies
3. Web-enabled project management
4. Integration of clinical data in subsequent projects.

These applications and others related to concurrent product development for drug discovery will be presented at SCPD '01, Concurrent Product Development Excellence, on June 6 and 7 in Tyngsboro, Mass. Information on the conference is available at http://www.soce.org or contact Barbara Power at power.plans@gte.net or 508 660-1793.

[The above observations were prepared by GGI Affiliates Donald Stewart and Hans Ludi. Don is SCPD '01 Conference Chair and was one of the Boston Chapter's original founding members. He worked in product marketing and new product business strategy for over 35 years at Teradyne and for the past ten years in management consulting. Don has a BS from MIT in Electrical Engineering and a MBA from Harvard Business School. Hans is the current President of the Boston SCPD Chapter. He has been the group leader at Ciba Geigy Corporation, the Director of Critical Care R&D at Bayer Diagnostics and is currently Chief Technology Officer at Biodynamix, a start-up involved in proteomics for drug discovery applications. Hans has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Bern.]

NEWS & NOTES
GGI Office Moving: After approximately 15 years in Cambridge, Massachusetts, GGI will be relocating our offices to just west of the Boston/128 area. While timing for the move has not yet been finalized, it will likely happen in the next two months. We will provide everyone with further details in future issues of RapidNews.

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RapidNews is a brief e-mail publication from Goldense Group, Inc (GGI), located in Cambridge, MA. Its subject matter includes survey findings, company news, book reviews, key industry conferences, and other R&D information of potential interest to clients and associates. Jon Gilmore is responsible for its content. Please send your communications to rn(at)goldensegroupinc.com. Thank you.
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