People, not platforms, will define the next era of innovation, explain Chiesi’s Executive VP of R+D Diego Ardigò and Nick Petschek, EMEA Managing Director at Kotter.
Pharmaceutical R+D has never been more technologically capable. Artificial analytics are accelerating discovery cycles in ways that were unimaginable a decade ago. Yet despite these advances, sustaining innovation has become harder than ever.
Development costs are climbing, competition for talent is intensifying and many of the most exciting early-stage innovations are now coming from biotech and academic partners. At the same time, a new generation of scientists is entering the field with different expectations. They look for trust, adaptability and purpose, not rigid hierarchies and incremental progress.
The result is a paradox. R+D organisations have mastered the science of innovation, but often struggle with the system and culture to enable it. The gap between scientific capability and organisational effectiveness is widening, threatening long-term competitiveness.
In a time defined by volatility, true innovation requires more than technical excellence. It requires cultural intelligence – the ability to mobilise people through trust, connection and shared purpose.
The crisis of technical-only leadership Pharma has long celebrated the technically brilliant scientist who drives discovery through sheer expertise and precision. Yet the same mindset that makes scientists exceptional researchers can also make them cautious leaders.
Commitment to too-high standards, control and an aversion to ambiguity – while invaluable in the lab – can become barriers in fast-moving. multidisciplinary environments.
Across many R+D organisations, this tendency is creating a quiet bottleneck. Why does it happen?
Because when psychological safety is missing, teams pull back. They take fewer creative risks, hold their ideas close and slow to a crawl. Projects drift. Collaboration suffers. Frustration builds until progress stalls.
We have seen cases where the science was extraordinary, but the human dynamics broke down. A technically flawless study can stall for months if one function refuses to share data or if team members feel unseen or unheard.
Conversely, when every contributor feels connected to the mission, even routine milestones can generate forward momentum.
Pharma is an industry built on evidence and precision, but innovation depends equally on emotion and belief. Without trust, engagement and shared purpose, even the most promising science struggles to leave the bench.
The new leadership imperative
Leading R+D today requires mastering the human dynamics of innovation as much as the technical processes.
Trust and psychological safety have emerged as non-negotiable preconditions for creativity.
Teams that feel safe to challenge assumptions and admit uncertainty are far more likely to discover new paths forward. Purpose-driven leadership, where individuals can connect their daily work to the organisation’s broader mission, builds resilience during regulatory or market setbacks.
At Chiesi R+D, this movement has been tangible. We are in the process of creating a more adaptable culture to set us up for the future. We build on our scientific drive by nurturing a workplace where care, empathy and collaboration are at the core. We are guided by the belief that curiosity, collaboration and courage are essential to our culture. With this lens, we re-examined how decisions were made, how teams shared knowledge, and how leaders communicated intent.
The goal was not to change what we did, but how we did it. To explore new ideas, work together across boundaries and embrace bold decisions for the benefit of patients, communities and the planet.
To build alignment not through authority but through participation. The result has been faster collaboration, higher engagement and a more visible sense of shared ownership across functions.
While we have already seen positive outcomes from these actions – in one leader’s words, “we’ve accomplished in three months what I thought would take three years” – the ultimate goal is to position our business for the next few years and decades to come.
From a transformation standpoint, the lesson is consistent. Change that lasts does not happen through structure alone; it happens when leaders activate both the head and heart of their organisations. Kotter’s decades of research show this repeatedly: sustainable transformation doesn’t start with a mandate, but with a movement; when people at every level feel emotionally connected to where the organisation is going.
Pharma’s next generation of R+D leaders should learn to inspire as well as instruct. The goal is to evolve from command-and-control to inspire-and-empower.
“We’ve accomplished three in months what I thought would take three years.”
People-first strategies that work
Culture change often feels abstract until leaders see how it translates into everyday actions.
The most effective strategies for building people-centred R+D teams are often the simplest and most intentional.
1. Align purpose with performance. In long development cycles, motivation can wane. Connecting each milestone to a shared mission — improving lives, advancing disease science, etc — helps sustain energy through inevitable setbacks. Kotter calls this a “Big Opportunity”: creating belief in the direction that is stronger and more sustainable than just immediate results. In Chiesi, this is already deeply and clearly rooted in the Group’s vision: solving the needs of patients, sustaining the health of our planet, and nurturing communities ultimately generate shared value for all stakeholders.
2. Foster courage through psychological safety. Encourage smart risk-taking by normalising curiosity and experimentation. Make it clear that questioning assumptions is not only accepted but expected. When scientists feel safe to explore and fail fast, breakthroughs happen. Learning to transfer this experimentation mindset from the lab to organisational leadership, decision-making and new ways of working represents a true ‘awakening’ for research and development teams. A recurring initiative at Chiesi invites R+D executives and managers to sponsor, coach and support subject-matter experts leading “crack the challenge” team-based, time-limited sprint projects. These sprints, often focused on organisational and process challenges, use a sandbox approach in which teams test their ideas and bring them back to leadership through agile, collaborative working sessions. People are encouraged to show courage, curiosity and collaboration to drive meaningful change.
3. Empower cross-functional collaboration. Modern R+D depends on the seamless flow of ideas between functions. Break down silos by designing projects that mix disciplines and by rewarding collaborative behaviour. In one of the abovementioned sprints at Chiesi, empowering scientists closest to the ‘problem’ (in this case, clinical, technical and quality) to solve it, allowed them to decrease the time between two key milestones by 50 percent through improved collaboration and smart risk taking.
4. Activate informal networks. R+D thrives when information travels faster than hierarchy. Encourage informal networks – groups of committed individuals across teams who share insights, spot issues early, and build momentum behind new ideas. This dual-system approach, where the formal organisation is complemented by an agile, trust-based network, allows companies to adapt without losing rigour.
5. Bring back the joy. Pharma is serious work. But even in the most complex, regulated environments, joy and connection matter. Teams that find enjoyment and shared pride in their work sustain performance longer. Small rituals such as open forums to celebrate progress and informal recognition moments can strengthen engagement even in high-pressure phases.
Some of these practices might seem ‘soft’, but their impact is measurable: lower attrition, faster cross-functional turnaround and higher resilience. Culture is not a side project, it’s a performance system in its own right.
The leadership choice
The future of pharma R+D will be decided not by who adopts the most advanced technology, but by who leads people most effectively through constant change.
Leadership built on empathy, trust and adaptability is not a nice-to-have; it is a business necessity tied directly to innovation and speed.
Put in the effort today and the dividends come quickly: sharper agility, bigger creative leaps and a clear competitive edge.
Change always starts with leadership commitment. Keeping it alive, though, takes a regular and consistent spark: sometimes that means fresh eyes, firm structure, a partner who keeps urgency high when early wins tempt teams to coast. Research is clear: resistance rarely sinks change, complacency does.
Every R+D leader today faces a choice: either evolve your approach to match the complexity of the world you operate in, or risk being outpaced by those who do.
The science of tomorrow will come from organisations that remember what makes discovery possible in the first place – that is, people who believe in what they are building and leaders who give them reason to.
This article originally appeared in European Pharmaceutical Review.
