New Business Exploration: The journey has begun

While developing new medicines or entering new markets, alone or in partnerships, may seem challenging, it is still very familiar to us as a pharmaceutical company. Constantly striving to become better at what we do in all parts of the value chain is a ‘must do’ in order to be successful in the current pharma business model, and something we already excel at. 

Innovative ideas, when they are about developing a new product or about improving our ways of working, fit very well with our existing internal and external collaboration processes, whereas new ideas that are not directly linked to a certain product or a process require new approaches. It is for these types of ideas that we have developed a separate process called Orion ‘Runway’.  

Orion Runway - exploring novel ideas

The process begins by exploring strategically important themes or trends, and researching, scouting and ideating around the topic. Selected ideas are prototyped and tested at a concept study phase followed by a pilot phase validating the demand and feasibility of the idea. With draft venture plans the chosen ideas will progress to venture launch and, if successful, will be scaled up. 

Through the Runway process we gather more information and insights around the initial idea and use Design Thinking or similar methods for iterating the development as needed, before making detailed business case calculations and before deciding whether to pursue the idea further within the confines of the company or whether to find alternative avenues, e.g., through collaboration models. 

The Orion Runway is open for business, and we look forward to exploring collaboration opportunities with different stakeholders sharing similar interests.