Informatics


Simultaneous visualisation of attrition and timelines


funnel diagrams


In drug discovery both attrition and timelines are important factors to consider when applying process improvement to lead optimisation. In our attempts to improve the visualisation of both of these factors simultaneously, we developed funnel diagrams, which allow turnaround time and percentage progression to be viewed in a glance. This tool has been rolled out to the whole of research, encouraging an open environment that involves everyone. In this article, we would like to present examples of the funnel diagrams, implementation details and discussions of issues, the people aspects of successful deployment and possible future developments.


By Dr Linda Hirons, Dr Craig Johnstone and Colin


Sambrook-Smith T


he problems faced by the pharmaceutical industry have been widely reported, and have been approached from a variety of angles. The scientific and technical challenges, the fulfilment of ‘low hanging’ opportunities, the increasing demands for breakthrough medicines from payors, and the increasing demands for improved safety from regulators have probably all played a contributory role in the current state of the industry. The heart of our problems can be articulated in Paul’s1 recent estimate that it costs as much as $1.8 billion to create a successful drug. This is a cumulative cost which is highly sensitive to the contributions from both attrition and the consequences of the many man-years of time invested. In recent years, an appreciation has emerged that the science of drug discovery and development runs on underlying processes and attempts to improve these supportive processes have been described2-16.


At Prosidion, we wished to examine and improve the systems and processes in research, with a particular focus on the testing process in the


44


first instance. As is common in test cascades, tests are typically arranged sequentially based on capac- ity and complexity, and compounds which pass certain criteria progress to the next test. From a science perspective, one is primarily interested in the test results, but from a process perspective, there are two principal pieces of information which are useful to gather, track and manage: attrition rate and time.


Herein we describe our attempt to create a sim- ple simultaneous visualisation of these two key ele- ments. We discuss benefits and issues, and propose extensions to the basic format which may have broader, useful applications to the visualisation of time and attrition in other domains of the drug R&D process.


The funnel diagrams and their current application A single funnel (Figure 1) represents the associated assay timelines and attrition rates through the drug discovery cascade for new compounds synthesised and registered during a given month for one


Drug Discovery World Winter 2011/12


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80