Centralized Coordination of Decentralized Research

Truth be told, it is tough out there for pharmaceutical scientists. Mega-mergers means mega-lay-offs. Outsourcing means research jobs going to India and China. Large supply of basic scientists by academia means slower job growth. So where does one conduct the next world-changing research project, which tour of duty can make your efforts rewarding, and where does one find bread and cheese?

There was a time that a research job at a big pharmaceutical company was considered the most cushy and secure for a scientist. Not so anymore. The mantra at Big Pharma is that they want to be more like small biotechs. That is both in terms of higher productivity and quicker decision-making. They are already becoming an ensemble of small franchises such that each can focus on a key therapeutic area and feed the drug pipeline for the sake of its own survival. Similarly, pride in ownership of technology is disappearing as more and more work is done through external contract research organizations (CROs) - hand-picked for their expertise in given areas.

What about the smaller biotechs and pharmaceuticals now? What are they doing? Sadly enough, many of the start-ups cannot even afford to have bare-bone working laboratories. But that does not stop innovation or research. They too, like the big pharma, are relying on external decentralized resources to conduct research and achieve their objectives. Except that some of them do not even have enough centralized expertise to pull it all together

As the globalization is tearing down the national boundaries for outsourcing, those CROs who can deliver in time and cost are flourishing. The decentralization is successful so far there is in-house expertise to coordinate, manage and direct all the external efforts. But not every company has the required central research coordinator with right expertise.

Thus working as a global strategic research project coordinator has become the new emerging role for scientific consultants who choose to facilitate the extremely decentralized research environment of today. Between the vision of getting a drug to the clinic and the tedious experimental work required to accomplish it, lies the domain of these scientists and their focus to get projects done and get them done right.

Shakespeare would have said -

All the world's a laboratory,
And all the men and women merely scientists;
They have their experiments and they have their results,
And one scientist in one time leads many projects,
his research being done at seven CROs.