Why is pharmaceutical R&D so much slower to produce results than semiconductor R&D? In a recent speech to the Society for Neurosciences, Andy Grove, Chairman Emeritus of Intel, argued that the pharmaceutical companies have the wrong attitude.
“The fundamental tenet that drives us all in the semiconductor industry is a deeply felt conviction that what matters is time to market, or time to money. But you never hear an executive from a pharmaceutical company say: ‘Before the end of the year I'm going to have xyz drug’," Grove told the neuroscientists, “the heart of every high-tech executive has been, get the product into customers' hands and ramp up production. That drive is just not present in pharma; the drive to get sufficient understanding and go for it is missing.”
It’s a little unkind to point out that, from Intel’s blockbuster 1103 DRAM to the first Pentium, Intel shipped, and knew it was shipping, faulty chips.
If you do that with products which people swallow, the authorities put you out of business.
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