Capacity Planning under Clinical Trials Uncertainty for the Pharmaceutical Industry

摘要

Market globalisation, increased competitiveness and tightness of capital are some of the factors in the modern economy that affect every stage of the business value chain, especially in the pharmaceutical industry where the typical life-cycles of new drugs are becoming shorter. It may take eight years to develop a new product and the investment in it must be recovered quickly, as competitor products can appear in the market reducing its profitability. This paper presents a mixed integer optimisation model, which selects simultaneously the optimal capacity planning and investment strategy subject to the uncertainty of phased clinical trials for a given product portfolio. The applicability of the model is demonstrated by a case study.