Rethinking Return in Drug Development

Click here to watch a video of this episode. In drug development, ROI debates can drown out decision-grade evidence and the hard work of translational science. This episode asks a blunt question: when AI, digital biomarkers, or new assays change the work, who actually gets the return and who carries the downside? The tension is that finance wants clean numbers, while biology delivers messy truth. We challenge the habit of treating ROI as a single scoreboard and propose a more honest framing: financial return, return on intention for patients, and return on learning for the next decision. When those diverge, teams optimize for optics. When they align, innovation becomes durable and defensible. Takeaway: define your returns explicitly and report them side by side at governance meetings, before you declare a “win.”  If you liked this episode, steal the monthly cheat sheet at Innovation2Impact Newsletter (we do the digging, you keep the credit).