Of course, not all industries are “going lean.” One industry headed in the opposite direction is pharmaceuticals—to what we believe will be the industry’s regret. Once the low-hanging fruit of blockbuster drugs began winding down around 2012, instead of breaking into smaller, more flexible units, Big Pharma chose to pursue the consolidations and mergers that seemed to make Wall Street happy. We believe that increased size will reduce the flexibility of pharmaceutical companies even further, thus increasing their exposure to disruption.
