From interviews with 26 former and current leaders of R&D sections of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, Frank Douglas and his colleagues found six common themes relating to entrepreneurship in pharma that they report in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery. One that arose was that R&D heads have to stay in touch with their CEO as it helps in "building and maintaining an optimal culture in discovery." Another was that "smaller is better." The authors write that "there seems to be an inverse correlation between the size of an organization and its potential to develop trust among its constituents."
At In the Pipeline, one recommendation caught Derek Lowe's eye. The researchers write that
Lowe notes: "Those of you in temporary quarters, jammed into buildings that don't quite work, may not be as bad off as you might think."