Abstract
Licensing new opportunities for the treatment of cancer has been an essential part of Sterling Drugs' efforts to develop a series of new drugs. The decisions involved in making these selections have present;?d numerous organizational challenges. This paper describes a formal methodology based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for recommending licensing candidates to senior management. The AHP permits the evaluation of multiple diverse criteria, all of which affect the final decision. These factors have encom~assed a ranee of scientific. business. and strategic issues. 1mple6enting an f i ~ approach has fostered group involvement and facilitated communication. Modifications to the AHP were required for this application, primarily to permit the prospective evaluation of individual opportumties. This modified methodology has been applied retrospectively and the results validated on this basis.
