The M25 Effect is the observation that reducing Development Speed may lead to an increase in R&D productivity and is a corollary of the Development Speed Paradox. Named after London's major orbital motorway - the M25 - which reduced speed limits to increase throughput.

1. © Dennis Lendrem, 2013
THE M25 EFFECT
The Slower You Go, The Quicker You Get There
Dennis Lendrem, Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, UK

2. © Dennis Lendrem, 2013
The Development Speed Paradox
• Theory:
• Minimizing cycle time leads to an increase in R&D productivity?
• Re-engineering:
• Increase development speed by placing development tasks in
parallel wherever possible, minimizing development cycle time.
• Consequences:
• Increasing parallelization of development activities and the loss of
the option value1 associated with serial decision making.
1
Burman CF, Senn S 2003 Examples of option values in drug development.
Pharmaceutical Statistics, 2(2), 113-125

3. © Dennis Lendrem, 2013
The Development Speed Paradox
• Problem?
• For high risk processes – such as pharmaceutical development clearing failing or marginal molecules is more important than
reducing cycle time.
• For such high risk processes:
• The expected time to market may actually be SHORTER for the serial
process EVEN THOUGH THE CYCLE TIME is LONGER. This is the
Development Speed Paradox.
• Conversely, reducing Development Speed may increase R&D
throughput. This is the M25 Effect – after London’s orbital motorway
where speed limits were first reduced in the UK in order to increase
traffic throughput.

4. © Dennis Lendrem, 2013
# screened = 38
# discovered = 3
# launched = 3
# screened = 58
# discovered = 5
# launched = 4
16
Quick-Kill
15
Y
e
a
r
s
14
50
13
30
12
40
11
10
9
20
30
8
7
6
20
5
4
3
10
10
2
The Tetris Model
1
Cycle Time = 2+2 = 4 yrs
Cycle Time = 1+5 = 6 yrs

5. © Dennis Lendrem, 2013
The M25 Effect
• Providing we build opportunities to “fail” molecules early in
the development cycle, then even though the cycle time is
longer and Development Speed slower we see an
increase in R&D productivity - the M25 Effect.
• In the example, the “Quick-Kill” organization - with an
opportunity to “eliminate” molecules after just one year –
screens more molecules, discovers more drugs, and
launches more products than the organization with the
shorter cycle time.

6. © Dennis Lendrem, 2013
The M25 Effect
Lendrem DW More haste, less development speed. Scrip Magazine.
Dec 1995, 22-23.
Lendrem DW, Lendrem BC Torching the Haystack: Modelling fast-fail
strategies in drug development. Drug Discov Today. 2013 Apr;18(78):331-6. http://dx.doi:10.1016/j.drudis.2012.11.011*
Lendrem DW, Lendrem BC The Development Speed Paradox: Can
increasing development speed reduce R&D productivity? Drug Discov
Today. In press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2013.09.002
*Tetris Model