Process optimization in drug discovery

Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, with their research headquarters (Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research) located in Cambridge MA. In this thesis, I explore Novartis's process for developing drugs, specifically the earlier stages of research leading to high throughput screening. During the course of a 6.5 month, on-site project, Novartis's processes were identified, data were collected and relevant literature in product development and organizational structure were surveyed. Based on the accumulation of this information, several opportunities for improvement were identified and from these, recommendations were developed and implemented. This thesis considers the improvements Novartis could see in their drug discovery process by improving communication between organizations. In particular, I suggest that the company could benefit in cycle time and quality by designing and following more robust lateral processes and by moving their communication mode closer to integrative problem solving.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Roberts, Rebecca Anne, M.B.A. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rebecca Henderson and David Simchi-Levi.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Civil and Environmental Engineering.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/39693

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/39693