BioCentury
ARTICLE | Strategy

Putting R&D into BD

AstraZeneca boosts R&D's role in outside search for business development assets

February 6, 2012 8:00 AM UTC

AstraZeneca plc clearly has the restructuring bug, as last Thursday it announced it would shrink its neuroscience unit into a 40-50 person group exclusively focused on external opportunities. But it was not the first move toward a more externally facing future.

As the pharma has found more of its pipeline coming from outside sources, the company also has found the way it did business development no longer matched its needs. Last month, the company disclosed a revamped BD model that puts researchers center stage...