Managing drug discovery alliances for success

Although alliances are increasingly important to pharmaceutical companies, about 60 percent of alliances fail to produce their desired outcomes. Most of these failures are due to non-technical reasons. An analysis of Aventis' portfolio of drug discovery technology alliances suggests that addressing the key challenges that alliances pose to large pharmaceutical companies can reduce these failures. Moreover, three lessons emerge from the analysis as a pattern across successful alliances between large pharmaceutical companies and biotechnology firms as well as academia. These lessons provide a tactical basis for managers to implement and manage alliances across the drug discovery value chain.