Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 9 July 2008 | Nature 454, 144-145 (2008) | doi:10.1038/454144a
News
When there's no room to grow
To maintain profits in the face of rising development costs and slow drug pipelines, big pharmaceutical firms are trying to cut back. Heidi Ledford examines how GlaxoSmithKline has tried to adapt.
When Stephen Frye was made redundant from the world's second biggest pharmaceutical company last year it marked the end of his 20-year relationship with the firm — and perhaps the end of an era for researchers enjoying long careers in big pharma. “I grew up in that company,” he says.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email redesign@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
Could it be that the villain preventing pharma from millennial success is the industrialized/rational drug discovery paradigm? Can they go back and blend the preceding more physiologically-oriented paradigm with structure-based drug design? Will systems biology mature in time to bring radically new perspectives to drug discovery? Can the industry survive quarter-to-quarter stock market vetting? Stay tuned. It's pretty exciting stuff if your job isn't at stake.