Pharmaceutical discovery as a complex system of decisions: The case of front-loaded experimentation

In an article to appear shortly (McCarthy et al., 2006) the NPD process has been shown to be a complex adaptive system. In earlier articles (Allen & Ebeling, 1983; Allen, 2001; Allen & Strathern, 2005) the theory behind the emergent nature of the innovation and the new product development process has been presented and discussed, linking it to the inherent uncertainties involved in system instabilities when new dimensions and descriptors are turned on. This is the fuzzy front end of the innovation process and corresponds in practice to “the period between when an opportunity is first considered and when an idea is judged ready for development” (Kim & Wilemon, 2002). In the fuzzy front end, ambiguity about the performance of the idea prevails, preventing it from being transferred to development where it becomes increasingly expensive to rework or kill non-performing product ideas as one proceeds through the process (Verganti, 1997; Thomke & Fujimoto, 2000)