Whether we like it or not, risk is a critical part of innovation. Developing anything new requires taking a leap into the unknown - which carries with it a certain amount of risk and uncertainty. New drug development can take more than a decade and costs pharma companies billions of dollars a year so having strategies around how to manage and contain risk may be a crucial way of ensuring overall success.

In this Process Perspectives interview, Kelvin Stott, an R&D Expert and Thought Leader with the Quantelium Group, defines risk in the context of pharmaceutical R&D and explains why being aware the the different risks involved can help business executives make better informed decisions about the actions they want to take. He also draws the link between process excellence and risk and argues that there are times when it makes sense to increase variation rather than reduce it.

[inlinead]