Medimmune and an Effective Management Plan
Medimmune and an Effective Management Plan
The biopharmaceutical industry requires a strong project management department. Developing new drugs can cost up to billions of dollars and requires a company to dedicate a good deal of resources in order to get the drug to the patient. This is especially true when the company is a small to medium size company such as Medimmune. Medimmune, a global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, has a yearly research and development budget of over one billion dollars. While this may seem like a large budget, Medimmune must allocate their resources to 120 research projects and product candidates currently in their pipeline. Their budget and resources must be managed wisely in order to develop drugs across many therapeutic areas that is most advantageous to all stakeholders. A major process of developing a new drug or treatment is creating a risk management plan that ensures that resources are efficiently used to get the drug to the patient safely and efficiently. Gray and Larson (2006) have identified four steps in the risk management process that should be utilized when developing a risk management plan (p. 209). The first step in developing a risk management plan is risk identification. The Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide (PMBOK Guide) (2013) states that “identify(ing) risk is the process of determining which risks may affect the project and documenting their characteristics” (p. 319). There are numerous ways for an organization to identify potential risks that may occur during the life of a project. Gray and Larson (2006) suggest that one way is for the project manager to pull together “a risk management team consisting of core team members and other relevant stakeholders” (p. 209). The team will utilize problem identifying techniques to come up with a list of potential risks that may develop during the life of the project. Medimmune uses this
The biopharmaceutical industry requires a strong project management department. Developing new drugs can cost up to billions of dollars and requires a company to dedicate a good deal of resources in order to get the drug to the patient. This is especially true when the company is a small to medium size company such as Medimmune. Medimmune, a global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, has a yearly research and development budget of over one billion dollars. While this may seem like a large budget, Medimmune must allocate their resources to 120 research projects and product candidates currently in their pipeline. Their budget and resources must be managed wisely in order to develop drugs across many therapeutic areas that is most advantageous to all stakeholders. A major process of developing a new drug or treatment is creating a risk management plan that ensures that resources are efficiently used to get the drug to the patient safely and efficiently. Gray and Larson (2006) have identified four steps in the risk management process that should be utilized when developing a risk management plan (p. 209). The first step in developing a risk management plan is risk identification. The Project Management Body of Knowledge Guide (PMBOK Guide) (2013) states that “identify(ing) risk is the process of determining which risks may affect the project and documenting their characteristics” (p. 319). There are numerous ways for an organization to identify potential risks that may occur during the life of a project. Gray and Larson (2006) suggest that one way is for the project manager to pull together “a risk management team consisting of core team members and other relevant stakeholders” (p. 209). The team will utilize problem identifying techniques to come up with a list of potential risks that may develop during the life of the project. Medimmune uses this
References: Gray, C.F., & Larson, E.W. (2006). The managerial process. In B. Gordon et al. (Eds.), Project management (pp. 207-239). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill Irwin. Kendrick, T. (2009). Identifying and managing project risk: essential tools for failure-proofing your project (2nd ed.). New York, NY: AMACOM. Project Management Institute (PMI). (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (PMBOK guide) (5th ed.). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.