The biotech revolution in big pharma organisation

Biotechnology set two major changes in the pharmaceutical sector: (i) it changed the research process, through the introduction of new technologies; (ii) it paved the way to the new healthcare paradigm of the personalised medicines. In response to these changes, the organisational structure at each level must be modified. This task represents a major challenge particularly for big pharmas. The paper evaluates biotech-led changes on organisational structures of big pharmas. The work is based on the analysis of the organisations of the first ten pharmaceutical companies sorted by market capitalisation.