Article at a glance:

Making pharma alliances work

In no industry are alliances seen as more critical to innovation and success than in pharmaceuticals. Of today's top 25 drugs, 12 were discovered or developed by companies other than the ones that launched them. According to a recent survey, the trend is likely to continue, and the cost of alliances—not to mention their complexity—is likely to keep rising.

The take-away

Over the next decade, as deals become more complex, the winners in the pharmaceutical-alliance sweepstakes will understand the costs of complexity and forge alliances in which, perhaps counterintuitively, less collaboration—that is, more division of labor—creates greater value for both parties.