E-Folder - Business

A wise entrepreneur once told me, “The whole art of starting and maintaining a business lies in the management of people. You can have a good idea, but a bad team can screw it up. If you have not so good an idea, but have a good team, you can make wonders.” It’s often said that collective dec

According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product

isions of teams are generally more successful than one person making the decision without consulting the rest. Yet, sometimes, a team can make a bad collective decision. From entrepreneurship to venture capital, we now explore the dark side of teams.

We often hear about how successful teams

; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

Examples of combination products may in

an overcome obstacles in their startup. Here is a reason why you should believe in teams. You might not agree with me, but hear me out. There are four essentials features of an enterprise: team, business model, idea and cash. To most businessmen, cash is king. However, not many of us have the

lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

luxury of cash that can allow us to pursue our business. Then we look at the idea and business model. No matter how good they are, they need a good team to execute them. Hence it remains that team should be the most important feature of every startup. Of course, the other problem which is fa

here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe

ed by most Singaporean entrepreneurs is that no one wants to work for startups, because of the lack of or diminished pay and employment benefits. The other reason is that when a Singaporean works for a startup, the bosses make their lives harder by squeezing them off. There is no win-win situ

d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

Combination pro

tion for them. Of course, as the wise people always say, “The pasture is often greener on the other side.”

Even though we speak of the advantages for having a strong team, we should look at the whole thing from the other angle. This allows us to have a good perspective when a good team might

ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc

slowly corrupt and slip into a bad one. There are no rights and wrongs when it comes to teams, but it is important to have checks and balances. So, we roll out the dark side of the teams:

1. A good team plans well, but they must execute just as well: This is what I call the paper tea

easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi

s. A lot of people like planning because it empowers them to set the strategic directions and give themselves ownership of the enterprise. However, there is the tendency of the members of a good team who end up all as planners rather than people who execute the plan. In a startup, there is no

nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically

luxury for the team to just plan. It is important that they remember to get their hands dirty. I have seen good planning done by entrepreneurs with their startups, but the moment when they are asked to execute, they start to make mistakes. Most of the time, they erred because they made too ma

and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ

ny assumptions in their business plan. They forget that assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. Somehow their roles and responsibilities to execute the operation are independent of the original business plan. In such cases, they are not really that good a team after all. A good team can ad

ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi

pt to two good roles: both the planning and executing phases of their enterprise.

2. A good team may make an unanimous decision, but someone has to play the devil’s advocate: If everyone in the team keeps saying yes for every decision, eventually they will end up in making a bad unani

ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

Following aspects would a

ous decision. Why is it so? There is a concept known as creative tension, where a team is split into two to counter-argue each other until they both come to a consensus to decide on the optimal course of action. Notice that I use “optimal” instead of “correct”. When we negotiate a partnership

dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
Which combination prod

with another organization, it is important to do some due diligence on the other organization. Do not jump to conclusions so early because your organization may not need the partnership. When we raise money from a venture capitalist, we must look at the terms and conditions in the contract c

cts are meaningful and rational?
Which therapeutic categories to select?
Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
Do combin

refully. Do not end up signing a contract when your whole team end up becoming employees for the venture capitalist. They may offer you more money, but you must really scrutinize their motives behind those goodies. If the team is strong, they must be able to tolerate the person who’s playing

tions increase the patient compliance?
What would be the developing cost?
How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen

he devil’s advocate and not a destructive influence to the team’s cause.

3. A good team may make mistakes, but they must make a comeback: Some good teams collapse upon failure. The members blame each other and not thinking what the next steps are to ensure a comeback. It is human natu

t?

As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

re to assign blame to others for the failure of a project. A good team has higher tendency of assigning blame because they have a higher expectation of themselves to succeed. However, failure is part and parcel of life and the real failure of most teams failing to bounce back is the inability

ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust

of re-organizing their efforts to get back into the game.

4. A good team can resist anything but temptation (cash, egos and power): All it takes is money, ego and power to split a good team. We often hear stories of power struggles in companies when there is a clash between two or a f

y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products

w personalities. The clash of egos are often destructive influences to most teams. If you want an example of a good team, look at the early team of Microsoft (Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Steve Balmer) versus the early team of Apple (Jobs, Wozniak, Markkula). The early team of Microsoft has man

.

As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de

aged to transit to a much stronger team, in comparison to the early Apple team, that led to Jobs being ousted and the company went into limbo for ten years. This is where loyalty and a win-win attitude needs to be bred among the founders to ensure the maximum winning chances of the team makin

elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

Companies that provide selfless information through particip

big leaps for the future. Otherwise, they will succumb to the dark side and fall apart.

So, good teams are not really that invulnerable because they are composed of human beings like you and me. So, be cautious and be prepared for the worst and do your best not to let a good team fall apart

tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.e-folder.org.ua/article/45558/e-folder-The-Dark-Side-Of-Teams.html">The Dark Side Of Teams</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.e-folder.org.ua/article/45558/e-folder-The-Dark-Side-Of-Teams.html]The Dark Side Of Teams[/url]

If you operate a small business, you may feel that your income potential is quite limited. However, you can increase and diversify your income through international trade.

Learn to deal with tough customers and provide excellent service, even when the situation isn't your fault.

Last night a good friend of mine said the following: “Dave, some people may feel that they are entrepreneurs but when they read about people saying that you are either born an entrepreneur or you aren’t, they automatically discount themselves from entrepreneurship and begin to feel that entrepreneurship isn’t for them because they don’t feel that they are natural born leaders; which is something that all entrepreneurs must possess.”

Tags

Links

E-Folder - The Dark Side Of Teams

Related Articles: