C580 – Operations Management
Eli Lilly: The Evista Project Case Study
- Krishna Tavvala
Background:

Eli Lilly is a leading pharmaceutical company specializing in treatment of diseases like the depression, schizophrenia, diabetes, infections, osteoporosis among others. Evista, a newly developed drug by Eli Lilly, is an estrogen replacement therapy medicine for prevention of post-menopausal osteoporosis which also appeared to lower the incidence of breast cancer in women. This FDA approved drug is expected to be a potential blockbuster and generate revenue of 1 billion US dollars per year for the company.

Problem Statement:

In a highly competitive and dynamically changing market it has become imperative for the leading pharmaceutical …show more content…

The collaboration of heavyweight teams with functional teams should become a key piece policy to regulate the dynamics between the working teams within the organization.

In long-term, Eli Lilly should concentrate on increasing the staffing in critical areas by increasing the spending in R&D from the profits generated. It should also leverage its market leader label in collaborating with similar pharmaceutical companies or independent research laboratories/institutions in development of new drugs. This approach will not only reduce the resource constraints but also improve the coordination between different teams within and outside the organization. Though heavyweight teams are not necessary in each and every project, they need to be created and employed by identifying the key projects with high probability of success. Lessons learned by heavyweight teams should be shared with functional teams to achieve cost savings in all projects by every possible manner. Key goals and objectives should be set for each project, group and group member in that order and should be evaluated frequently. Coordination between different groups should be increased by encouraging them to organize frequent meetings and sharing their project issues.

How did Lily traditionally staff structure their development project teams?

A los administradores de proyectos se les asignaban 4 o 5 proyectos para supervisar, con equipos funcionales también asignados a cuatro o cinco