Our Services
"I tremendously enjoyed working with Catenion. They are fully at home in pharmaceutical Discovery and bring a highly unusual combination of a rigorous analytical mind–set with a pragmatic understanding of R&D strategy and organisational mechanics."
Dr. Gianni Gromo
Global Head Metabolic & Vascular Disease Area
F. Hoffmann–La Roche AG
If you are interested in receiving updates on our speaking engagements and copies of our publications, please let us know.
Our Insights
Catenion is passionate about providing whole new perspectives and approaches on how pharmaceutical and medical products executives can dramatically improve their returns on R&D. We are frequently asked to share these insights at major conferences. In addition, we publish our ideas in the form of Catenion Commentaries.
To see where we will be speaking and to read our publications, click on the links below.
Risk Profiles of Corporate Portfolio Strategies
The current meltdown of some segments of the global banking system can be seen as a direct result of three systemic weaknesses in the way that many financial services companies operated in a largely deregulated financial system during the last three decades. In this commentary we discuss how a thorough understanding of portfolio risk profiles can help companies design more sustainable strategies. We will explore a new valuation methodology and discuss a number of examples and case studies.
The Challenge for Japan’s Pharmaceutical Top Twenty
Simply copying the business models of the West will not do for Japanese companies to fulfill the Ministry’s vision, except through sheer luck. To many observers, the country’s industrial genius lies in imitating and improving on Western models, as exemplified by the success stories of the Japanese electronics, ship–building, machine tool and car industries. We show in this Commentary that establishing sustainable positions of competitiveness in the global pharmaceutical industry will require more than incremental innovation.
Zero Base Pharmaceutical R&D — A Thought Experiment to Address the Pharmaceutical Research Crisis
What we mean by "Zero Base R&D". The concept of zero based budgeting was originally introduced to help managers of private and public organisations systematically question the utility of each and every activity they plan to spend money on in the next fiscal period.
Recombinant Portfolio Management — Recognising and Enabling Innovation
Portfolio management has become standard practice in pharmaceutical R&D over the last decade. Most companies have implemented processes and systems with varying degrees of sophistication and rigour across the entire R&D value chain from early discovery to late development, both for internal opportunities and as part of due diligence and licensing activities for external opportunities.
Recombinant Innovation Management (RIM) — How to Stimulate Breakthrough Innovation within Large R&D Organisations
Pharmaceutical R&D is in a state of crisis: productivity is declining both in terms of output per spending as well as total output, while patent expirations threaten many successful product franchises within the next years. The main issue is that impressive advances in process productivity have not translated into more novel products addressing unmet needs.
Elements of a Winning R&D Strategy
R&D strategies come in different shapes and sizes. Some companies focus their efforts on therapeutic areas or indications, some on drug formats, some rely on scientific excellence and breakthrough innovation while others are obsessed with productivity and efficiency. What are the winning elements of R&D strategies?
Past Speaking Engagements
8th Annual Project and Portfolio Management for Pharma
Facilitating Operational and Strategic Project and Portfolio Management for Maximum ROI
Avenida Palace, Barcelona, Spain
January 29th & 30th, 2009
Dr. Markus Thunecke, Senior Partner, presented "Two Decades of Portfolio Management — Where Do We Stand?"
- Why portfolio management still fails to have an impact in many organizations
- Engaging the organisation, creating impact — case studies and examples
Dr. Matthias Krings, Partner, was the chair of this conference organised by Marcus Evans.
Project & Portfolio Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry, Barcelona
September 16th & 17th, 2008
Christian Elze, Senior Partner, was the chair of this conference organised by Jacob Fleming.
United States Drug Information Association Annual Meeting
June 22–26, 2008
Christian Elze, Senior Partner, participated at the 44th Annual Meeting of the United States Drug Information Association – DIA – which was held in Boston, MA, from June 22 to 26, 2008 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.
Christian presented "Option Space Mapping" in the session on "Advanced Portfolio Management Methodologies" on June 24th.
Portfolio Management in Pharma
February 5, 2008, Madrid, Spain
Dr. Markus Thunecke, Senior Partner, and Dr. Matthias Krings, Partner, participated in the "Portfolio Management in Pharma" conference on Tuesday, February 5, 2008, at the Auditorium Hotel in Madrid, Spain, organised by ViB Events.
Markus gave a presentation titled "Decision Analysis Revisited — The Unmet Needs of Portfolio Management in 2008 and How to Address Them" which covered such topics as:
Decision analysis and portfolio management in pharma — where
do we stand?
Designing a process that really works — from innovation
to value
Building the ideal portfolio — some thoughts from financial
theory
Assessing the impact of quality, size and diversity on the portfolio
risk–return and profile
Organisational pre–requisites for successful portfolio
management
7th Annual Conference on Project and Portfolio
Management for Pharma — Organised by Marcus Evans
November 26–27 2007, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Dr. Markus Thunecke, Senior Partner, chaired the conference and gave a presentation titled "Portfolio Management for Discovery / Early Development and Full Development".
2010 Catenion GmbH. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Germany. 