Category: Pharmaceuticals

Can you always believe data which is based on people’s opinions and self-reporting? The obvious answer is no. Let’s see how one company used Attribute Agreement Analysis to determine the reasons for speaker program cancellations.

Through the use of Design of Experiments (DOE), a pharmaceutical company was able to extend the shelf life for one of its life saving liquid oncology medicines. Let’s see how this saved the company money, lowered the price of the drug and helped save lives. 

The life sciences industry, which includes the production of pharmaceuticals and medical devices, faces unique challenges that have made it a late adopter of continuous improvement techniques such as Lean Six Sigma (LSS). Most critical are severe government regulation, product approval phases that can span multiple years, and the imperative responsibility to ensure patient safety […]

The role of Lean and Six Sigma in drug discovery and development is a controversial topic. Does Lean Six Sigma improve innovation or stifle it? A recent article in Drug Discovery Today offers new perspectives, analysis, and suggestions that I found encouraging. While acknowledging the contradicting perspectives and experiences many organizations have, the authors see […]

“We’re different!” Practitioners often hear these words while attempting to deploy Lean Six Sigma. While the phrase is sometimes viewed as an excuse to avoid change, in the case of the marketing and sales function within a pharmaceutical organization, it may hold some validity. This article explores ten reasons why sales and marketing claim to […]

Here is a provocation: Quality practices in the pharmaceuticals industry today are what they were in other industries 15 to 20 years ago. It is time to catch up. The regulators recognize it. Pharmaceutical business leaders recognize it. Six Sigma is an opportunity for operations and quality professionals to modernize quality practices. Those who get […]

Yesterday, Covance, a $1.3 billion in revenue drug development service company, announced their second quarter results. The results were good, earning up, revenues up, etc…Included was a plug for their Six Sigma program: Our relentless focus on operational and service excellence continues to deliver substantial benefits. Six Sigma, which is being utilized across more than […]

A Press Release issued today by Eli Lilly and Company credits Six Sigma as a significant contributor to the 15% productivity increase they experienced in 2005: “Lilly is utilizing several tools to increase productivity and lower its cost structure, including applying Six Sigma across its global operations, which is expected to free up resources, accelerate […]

Eli Lilly may be new to using Six Sigma but they put so much research into the methodology before deployment you would have thought it was a new drug. And in fact Six Sigma is the drug to which 200 Black Belts are currently addicted. Once you start up the hellacious hills of hypotheses and […]

Pharmaceuticals is a place where Six Sigma does more than save money. Less defects in the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare industries save lives. All the Fortune 500 Pharmaceutical companies are using Six Sigma. Abbott Laboratories Amgen Bristol-Myers Squibb Eli Lilly Johnson & Johnson Merck Pfizer Schering-Plough Wyeth

Pfizer currently uses Six Sigma as one of the tools in their “Right First Time” initiative. Right First Time also includes Process Analytical Technology (PAT) which is an FDA prescribed framework for quality assurance in the pharmaceutical industry. Food & Drug Packaging published a Special Report in May 2004 that reveals details of their program: […]