BPR in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract: This thesis investigates the use of Business Process Reengineering (BPR) as a change approach in the Pharmaceutical Industry. The pharmaceutical industry is undergoing profound changes. New opportunities, e.g. in the field of bio-technology, price pressure from governments, insurances and through generic products have created a variety of dynamics in the industry. Today, pharma-companies are also closely monitored with regard to their R&D pipeline and their ability to execute efficient R&D projects. As a result, pharma-companies have been looking for approaches that would enable a substantial improvement of their R&D processes, among them Business Process Reengineering. During a study at Astra Hässle in Mölndal, a research subsidiary of Astra (now AstraZeneca), two change initiatives under the label of BPR were investigated and analyzed. The first one, FASTRAC, was a local project, aiming at improving research and development at Astra Hässle. CANDELA, the second initiative, was aiming at an overhaul of R&D at Astra corporate level. FASTRAC resulted in several IT initiatives, of which one was investigated in detail. This investigation identified several critical aspects of the implementation of a new data collection process and IT-solution for remote data capture (RDC). Furthermore, this thesis proposes measures that go beyond the concept of reengineering. It proposes a new conceptual model for clinical research and suggests a different way of technology use for supporting the clinical R&D process. It also describes organizational aspects of organizing R&D in alternative ways.