Long range planning of biologics process development and clinical trial material supply process

This thesis investigates the feasibility of using a complex model with a Monte Carlo simulation model to forecast the financial, personnel, and manufacturing capacity resources needed for biologic drug development. Accurate forecasting is integral across industries in order to make strong longterm, strategic decisions and an area many companies struggle with. The resources required for the development of a biologic drug are especially hard to estimate due to the variability in the time and probability of success of each development phase. However, in the pharmaceutical industry getting products to market faster allows the company more time to recoup the substantial development investments before the patent expires and also potentially has a large impact on a company's market share. For these reasons, Novartis Biologics wanted to develop a simulation model to provide an objective opinion and assist them in their long-range planning. This thesis describes the design, development, and functionalities of the resultant model. During validation runs, the model demonstrated accuracy of greater than 90% when compared against historical data for headcount, number of campaigns, costs, and projects per year. In addition, the model contains Monte Carlo simulation capabilities to allow users to forecast variability and test the sensitivity of the results. This proves the model can be confidently used by project management, operations, and finance to predict their respective future resource needs.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Edwards, Emily (Emily Rose)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Roy Welsch and Charles Cooney.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Engineering Systems Division.
• Leaders for Global Operations 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/1721.1/66068

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/66068