New Paradigm of Pharmaceutical companies by Anne Song In the past 15 years, the pattern of getting funded in pharma companies, from research to marketing, has dramatically changed. To stay competitive in the open market, big pharmaceutical companies started to purchase fancy commercial lab and plant instruments believing those gadgets would give them the competitive edge over others. This led to the era of “lab automation”. Initially, these new shiny gadgets were sitting on the lab bench silently, as most experienced scientists rejected the notion of using the tools for generating thousands of samples at a time. However, shortly after the new instruments’ dynamic nature were proven, and the instruments became scientists’ indispensable tool, more scientists submitted proposals to collect their “own” tools. As the instruments took over the majority of scientist’s routine lab work, the scientist’s role has ...
