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Nature Reviews Drug Discovery

Pangalos and colleagues discuss the results of a comprehensive longitudinal review of AstraZeneca's small-molecule drug projects from 2005 to 2010. They present a framework to guide research and development teams based on the five most important technical determinants of project success and pipeline quality: the right target, the right patient, the right tissue, the right safety and the right commercial potential. A sixth factor — the right culture — is also crucial in encouraging effective decision-making. Maintaining research and development (R&amp;D) productivity at a sustainable level is one of the main challenges currently facing the pharmaceutical industry. In this article, we discuss the results of a comprehensive longitudinal review of AstraZeneca's small-molecule drug projects from 2005 to 2010. The analysis allowed us to establish a framework based on the five most important technical determinants of project success and pipeline quality, which we describe as the five 'R's: the right target, the right patient, the right tissue, the right safety and the right commercial potential. A sixth factor — the right culture — is also crucial in encouraging effective decision-making based on these technical determinants. AstraZeneca is currently applying this framework to guide its R&amp;D teams, and although it is too early to demonstrate whether this has improved the company's R&amp;D productivity, we present our data and analysis here in the hope that it may assist the industry overall in addressing this key challenge.

Lessons learned from the fate of AstraZeneca's drug pipeline: a five-dimensional framework