Merck's Aftermath

So the picture that's emerging of Merck's drug discovery business after this round of cuts is confused, but some general trends seem to be present. West Point appears to have been very severely affected, with a large number of chemists shown the door, and reports tend to agree that bench chemists were disproportionately hit. The remaining department would seem to be top-heavy with managers. Top-heavy, that is, unless the idea is that they're all going to be telling cheaper folks overseas what to make, that is. So is Merck going over to the Pfizer-style model? I regard this as unproven on this scale. In fact, I have an even lower opinion of it than that, but I'm sure that my distaste for the idea is affecting my perceptions, so I have to adjust accordingly. (Not everything you dislike is incorrect, just as not every person that's annoying is wrong). But it's worth realizing that this is a very old idea. It's Taylorism, after Frederick Taylor, whose thinking was very influential in business circles about 100 years ago. (That Wikipedia article is written in a rather opinionated style, which the site has flagged, but it's a very interesting read and I recommend it). One of Taylor's themes was division of labor between the people thinking about the job and the people doing it, and a clearer statement of what Pfizer (and now Merck) are trying to do is hard to come by. The problem is, we are not engaged in the kind of work that Taylorism and its descendants have been most success...
Source: In the Pipeline - Category: Chemists Tags: Business and Markets Source Type: blogs