From Sourcing Signals to Pipeline Advantage: External R&D Best Practice Playbook
This playbook is intended to serve as a blueprint for building External R&D functions that can source the right science early, evaluate it efficiently, and translate external intelligence into lasting pipeline advantage.
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Contributors
The insights contained within this resource were given by the following industry leaders...
Over more than three decades in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, Uli has contributed to the discovery and development of numerous therapeutic candidates while leading external innovation, strategic partnerships, and portfolio-building efforts across Europe and the United States.
What’s inside the playbook?
- A five-pillar framework for building External R&D capability, from ecosystem positioning through to pipeline contribution
- The External R&D workflow, showing how the pillars come together in practice
- A self-assessment to benchmark your function against each pillar and identify where to focus
Who is the playbook for?
- Heads of External R&D, Open Innovation, and Scientific Partnering building or maturing their sourcing capability
- BD and BD&L leaders who want to strengthen how external science enters the pipeline
- R&D leaders accountable for pipeline sustainability and the return on external innovation
- Partnering and alliance teams working to connect early sourcing with long-term collaboration
How is AI changing External R&D for companies?
Every External R&D team faces the same structural problem: the inflow of science is uncontrolled, the budget is set elsewhere, and the team is a fixed size, so the only real lever is where the team puts its attention. This is where AI changes the economics by expanding how much a team can see, triage, and remember without growing headcount.
The playbook examines where AI genuinely changes External R&D, and where human judgment still decides.
What makes External R&D teams successful?
Successful External R&D teams do three things well: they source the right science early, evaluate it efficiently, and turn external intelligence into lasting pipeline advantage.
This playbook is a blueprint for building that capability, developed with experienced External R&D leaders in the industry and grounded in Inpart's work with partnering teams at the world's leading pharma companies.
The five pillars of external R&D excellence
I
Ecosystem Positioning
Over Asset Processing
II
Strategic Search Spaces
Over Opportunistic Sourcing
III
Institutional Memory
As Competitive Moat
IV
Empowered Scouts
Within Governed Boundaries
V
Pipeline Contribution
Over Deal Volume