The lack of creativity in the Pharma Industry

I recently read an article in IDEA Junkie that express my thoughts about the lack of creativity in the Pharma Industry. Here is the full text.

Humanity is dead  

http://www.ideapharma.com/announcements/humanity-is-dead 

By Pankaj Oza

Humans are imaginative beings; our survival has depended upon it over hundreds of thousands of years. Imagination and innovation have spurred survival instincts to ensure humanity has prospered over generations through adaptation. An ability to sense adverse conditions and to then adapt accordingly has driven successful creation and inhabitation of new communities.
This imagination continues to be seen in all walks of life, however more recently it can be argued that the progress of humanity is coming to a plateau. How further can innovation continue to extend both the quantity and quality of our lives? How much longer can we extend our lives? How much more can we pack into our lives? How ‘productive’ actually are we?  Does the time we spend at work truly deliver ‘productivity’?  
If we compared the time spent on our chosen activities, the time with our friends, the time with our families with the time at work, would we recognise ourselves? The environments within which we find ourselves clearly impact our attitude and approach and our subsequent ability utilize our inherent creativity. What fosters the appropriate environment to drive our creativity inherent in all of us?
The need for survival clearly focuses our minds and fosters enhanced ingenuity and creativity. Electric cars, wind farms, solar panels, nuclear power… have all derived from a necessity for alternatives in a resource constrained environment.
But why does it take an impending disaster for us to turn on our creativity? Why do certain environments foster creativity? Why does creating a meal incorporate so much more creativity that answering our emails at work?
Pharma is in a bad place and the reason Pharma is currently struggling is because the lack of creativity, absence of thought that goes into everyday tasks. The way in which we formulate a drug matters. The means by which we design a clinical study matters. The means by which we choose specific end points matters. The population we define in which to study a drug matters. The options we develop to outline the possibilities for a molecule matters.
If Pharma could only spend a little bit of time utilising individuals’ natural creativity and taking just a little more time and creative thought to design molecules, Pharma would be in a different place. Until that time, the impending doom of blockbusters losing exclusivity will continue to define our industry.