Why Biopharma Startups Need Organizational Effectiveness

By Maryann Gallivan

I have spent a good part of my career working on “organizational effectiveness” — not only with my clients, but at the companies where I’ve worked, as well. As the life sciences industry changes and evolves, we work with more and more small, startup, virtual, “not so sure how long they will be independent” organizations, and I have been thinking a lot about organizational effectiveness in this context. Does it matter? If so, what does it look like?

Many leaders and employees of these startups have spent the bulk of their careers in Big Pharma. I think we all can agree that the business model that may work well for a large, complex, global company is not effective for a startup. Given the risk and uncertainty in a smaller company with a yet-to-be-proven product, most companies are designed to be largely virtual — with the goal of keeping costs down and creating flexibility.