Pharma Strategies: M&A Or Technical Excellence?

As the world's pharmaceutical majors continue to reorientate theirstrategies toward greater focus on therapeutic class and excellence in discovery research, and as they benchmark their management disciplines, they are also showing remarkable willingness to reposition their capabilities and strengths to enhance and rejuvenate their competitive skills, says a new study from Financial Times Management Reports.

Those companies which are running fast today may not necessarily be outpacing the pack five years from now; but then again, the odds are that they will be sprinting even faster, according to Rod McNeil, author of the study, which is entitled Pharmaceutical Strategies: Class Acts.

The report provides a broad overview of the influences on the industry and the shifting directions in R&D activities and focus, and examines the current strategies and objectives of the market leaders, based on interviews with the companies' chief executives and other top management figures. In the Corporate Review section of the report, the author and industry analysts examine 18 leading companies' strategies, therapeutic focus and research pipelines, trading performance and outlook, from which the following comments are drawn: