Agile: The new active ingredient in pharma development

Roche’s Frank Duff and Malte Schutz explain how trust, a faster pace, and evolutionary design have transformed their highly technical (and highly regulated) work.

Roche is one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies. It employs thousands of scientists and other R&D professionals around the world, dedicated to discovering and developing medicines for some of the world’s most intractable diseases. While the company’s approach to innovation has always been deeply collaborative—and remarkably productive—in 2018, it pivoted to agile, the organisational construct that is sweeping across industries. In March 2019, two leaders of Roche’s agile transformation in product development— Frank Duff, senior vice president, and Malte Schutz, vice president—met with McKinsey to discuss the origins of the work, its progress, and its potential.