A company can meet every sustainability reporting obligation it has and still fund the portfolio it would have funded anyway.
The argument of my doctoral thesis, in one sentence. Sustainability-adjusted portfolio selection of Phase 3 drug development programs — ETH Zurich, 2026.
Three altitudes on one problem
Eighteen years of quantitative work in pharmaceutical development: the technique, the execution, and the decision.
I began as a biostatistician, moved into global programme leadership accountable for budget, governance and regulatory filing, and then spent four years at ETH Zurich examining how funding decisions actually get made.
Those are three altitudes on one problem. I work at all three, and separately with executives as a thinking partner.
A criterion can enter a decision at three points, and only one decides
A criterion can enter a decision at three distinct points. They are not interchangeable.
GATE 01ScoringFixes what gets measured.
GATE 02WeightingFixes how much it counts. Where the argument happens.
GATE 03EligibilityFixes which options may compete at all. Where the decision is usually made.
These three are routinely discussed as one thing — as „factoring sustainability in.“ They are not one thing, and the difference decides what gets funded.
447stakeholders surveyed internationally on trial sustainability criteriaSingh et al., Clinical and Translational Science, 2025
32portfolios from five funded programmes, under a prespecified simulationDoctoral thesis, ETH Zurich, 2026
23peer-reviewed publications and one book chapterComplete record on ORCID
250+statisticians, academics and regulatory scientists in the working group I chairASA Biopharmaceutical Section, eight subteams, elected through three offices since 2017
18years in pharmaceutical development, ten across Novartis and SandozUCB, AstraZeneca and Eli Lilly before that
On these figures. Every number traces to a named, dated source. Where my findings are conditional on the case studied, they say so — here and in the papers. I keep illustrative examples and verified results visibly apart. In a field that overclaims routinely, that distinction is most of the value.