GlaxoSmithKline's Hal Barron exhorts GSK scientists to take 'smart risks'

Smart risks = Dangerous risks

GlaxoSmithKline's Hal Barron exhorts GSK scientists to take 'smart risks'

This is a Fierce Pharma article from July 22, 2019 - just a few months before the COVID ‘outbreak.’ It begins:

Barron exhorts GSK scientists to take 'smart risks'

Hal Barron has detailed efforts to embolden GlaxoSmithKline scientists to take “smart risks” when developing drugs. The culture change is part of an effort to stop the fear of failure from pushing GSK researchers to make conservative decisions. 

Talking to the Financial Times, Barron discussed how rewarding teams that take molecules deep into the clinic and penalizing those that kill off assets early can subtly influence the interpretation of data. 

“Once you start fearing failure, you become so conservative that you end up basically moving towards things that are obviously going to work and therefore likely to be not very i…