Organising for Innovation

GSK were caught in the perfect storm from 2008. R&D productivity was declining, costs were going up, FDA approvals were at an all time low, vital patents were expiring and successful innovation seemed to be just out of reach. That's when the President of R&D set up a project called Innovation Sans Frontiers in an effort to create a pipeline with radical, game-chainging ideas to grow the business. This revelatory case study tracks this project over three years and identifies the key things which encourage innovation as well as highlighting the things which frustrate it. It identifies four characteristics or factors which, if organisations get them right, will stack the odds in favour of delivering successful, radical innovation.