Value Creation, challenging R&D
Nic Talbot-Watt, former Director of Forecasting, GE Healthcare
Case study: GE Healthcare was launching an in-licensing product. It was a great opportunity: the challenge was to reach a single end point where they could present management with a product ready to be taken to the market.
As portfolio manager, Nic’s job was to work with several different groups, including R&D, Commercial/ Marketing, Business Development Licensing and Management. Her big challenge was to get R&D and Commercial to actually talk to one another. She found that they had very different perspectives, that ‘they don’t talk the same language.’ R&D was concerted with brilliant science; commercial was concerned with making as much money as possible. Her job was to balance the two.
She gives a brief outline of how she did this:
They developed a transparent evaluation tool. They also used QFD (Quality Function Deployment) tool, which borrowed from Six Sigma methodology.
This tool had input from both parties, and was used to rank and integrate differing views.
- 7 potential indications were outlined. Their production feasibility was assessed alongside their value/probability of success.
- Different teams were then asked to rank the top three; each team had definitive criteria by which to assess them
- Preliminary forecasts generated for each indication were identified by clinical, using a standard forecast model template.
- Then Nic sought the advice of the Medical Advisory Board, a neutral, objective voice able to challenge both R&D and commercial.
- The board gave their opinion (they actually rejected 5 of the 7 indicators)
- In the light of their feedback, R&D and Commercial re-ranked the indicators.
- Finally, they agreed on one development plan and forecast, which they took to management.
Nic found that R&D really appreciated feeling like they were being listened to, and that their considerations were important to the business processes. Commercial had to learn to appreciate R&D’s technical considerations rather than just perceiving them as frustrating blocks.
Nic describes how longer term, the company were hoping to establish processes that would improve relations/ communication between R&D and Commercial and make their dealings more transparent, etc.
