Have sunset provisions in place that terminate a research project at a predetermined time (e.g., one, two, or three years) if substantial progress or predetermined objectives are not achieved. The goal of this approach is to force current discovery projects to compete with new ideas for resources. This helps ensure that the best ideas are being worked on and that the effect of internal politics is minimized in this area.

Contract or form alliances with other companies, research institutes, and/or academic departments to obtain exclusive rights to any compounds of pharmaceutical value they discover. This could cover certain chemical series, certain therapeutic areas, specific technologies, or other types of discovery activities.

Focus on the number of different projects being researched. An argument may be advanced to focus on fewer projects and to devote more resources to each. This approach is designed to increase the chance of finding an important and valuable compound by focusing research in a narrower area. The antithesis, or opposite argument, may also be posed, namely, to focus on more research projects and devote fewer resources to each project. This approach is designed to increase the chance of finding an important and valuable compound by covering a wider research area. The opposite nature of this and the above point shows that a research professional or manager can (and will) argue whichever way he or she believes appropriate. Each company will decide where its own balance lies in this regard, and that balance would differ greatly among companies depending on several factors such as resources, opportunities, and personalities of the senior decision makers.

Encourage friendly competition among discovery professionals and/or groups: (a) within the same research group, (b) in different research groups of the company in different countries, or (c) in different subsidiaries of the parent company.

Hire the most creative staff from academia or from other pharmaceutical companies. This latter approach has not been pursued very aggressively in the pharmaceutical industry as compared with academia, where entire departments are sometimes recruited from one university to another.

Have an external consultant or internal staff expert from the development division audit the status of discoveries on an annual or other basis. This is intended to prevent scientists (or managers) from keeping projects in the discovery phase too long and not advancing them to development in order to answer scientific questions that could be addressed while the compound advances toward human testing and even when it is being tested in the clinic. Advancing compounds at the appropriate rate also allows additional discovery projects to be initiated and progressed.

Establish minimally acceptable criteria to advance all compounds into lead compounds and progress all lead compounds toward and into development. Write down the path that each compound must take through the maze of tests used in discovery research. This should decrease the tangents that may be inadvertently (or purposely) taken by scientists, as well as minimizing the possibility of their failing to identify important and valuable compounds. This topic is discussed in Chapter 50.

The minimally acceptable criteria are also used to terminate progress on a new compound, lead compound, or drug when predetermined minimal efficacy, safety, pharmacokinetic, or other criteria of major importance to the viability of the project are not achieved in experiments.

Become a development-focused company and give up discovery research altogether. It is understood that this approach is neither desirable nor acceptable for the majority of companies trying to find new drugs within their own laboratories. Nonetheless, products (i.e., discoveries) can be purchased, licensed-in, or otherwise obtained.

License-in drugs that are in early-stage development (i.e., up through Phase 1 of human trials), rather than relying on discovering drugs that will hopefully progress into development.

Develop drugs where the probability of efficacy is extremely high, rather than those whose clinical activity is based on a hypothesis. A major commercial success from a breakthrough
drug usually involves higher risks, and this often means accepting a hypothesis as the basis of undertaking clinical trials. Therefore, most companies seeking huge commercial profits on a specific project would not seek to reduce risk by using this approach of avoiding hypothesis testing.