Evidence Before Assertion.
My experience in global pharmaceutical programme leadership and enterprise analytics has shaped how I approach strategic decisions, from evaluating scientific evidence and balancing competing priorities to translating strategy into execution. My research in decision science complements this experience by examining how assumptions, uncertainty, and decision rules influence strategic choices in pharmaceutical development.
From Sustainability Reporting to Strategic Decisions
Pharmaceutical companies increasingly measure and report the economic, environmental, and social consequences of their activities. Yet making these consequences visible does not establish how they should influence investment and development decisions.
My doctoral research at ETH Zurich examines this distinction through Phase 3 pharmaceutical portfolio selection.
The central question is how sustainability considerations can be incorporated into portfolio decisions, and under what conditions they can change the resulting recommendation.
The research brings together evidence from published guidance, stakeholder priorities, and decision analysis to examine the relationship between what organizations measure, what they value, and which alternatives they permit.
Establishing the Evidence and Understanding Priorities
The research began by examining two questions. What does existing guidance establish about sustainable clinical trial design, and which sustainability considerations do stakeholders prioritize?
A published literature review examined sustainability across eight operational elements of decentralized clinical trials. It identified gaps in the environmental considerations addressed by the reviewed guidance.
A subsequent international survey examined sustainability priorities and trade-offs among 447 consenting participants. Greenhouse-gas emissions, trial probability of success, and patient convenience received the largest single first-place counts within their respective sustainability pillars.
Together, these studies established an evidence base for selecting criteria while identifying important limitations in the available evidence.
In particular, identifying stakeholder priorities does not establish how much weight each criterion should receive when objectives compete.
From Measuring Sustainability to Understanding Its Influence
The doctoral research extends these foundations into a framework for examining how sustainability enters portfolio decisions.
The framework distinguishes three mechanisms.
Scoring
What is represented in the decision?
Scoring determines which attributes are measured and how alternatives are evaluated against them.
Weighting
How are competing objectives traded off?
Weighting determines how differences in economic, environmental, and social performance contribute to the comparison of alternatives.
Eligibility
Which alternatives are permitted to compete?
Eligibility determines whether an alternative satisfies the conditions required to enter the final comparison.
These mechanisms have different consequences. Representing a sustainability criterion does not necessarily mean that it influences the ranking, and influencing a ranking does not necessarily mean that the selected alternative changes.
The framework provides a way to examine these distinctions rather than assuming that the inclusion of sustainability information demonstrates its effect on a decision.
Three gates. Different consequences.
Explore how measurement, competing priorities, and decision rules shape the alternatives an organization can select.
What is measured?
Scoring translates criteria into comparable measures; it does not select an alternative on its own. For leaders, the question is whether the measures used to evaluate performance adequately represent the objectives they intend to pursue.
Beyond the Model
The distinction between measurement, trade-offs, and eligibility also raises questions relevant to enterprise leadership.
Organizations must decide what constitutes meaningful performance, how competing priorities should be balanced, and which commitments or constraints should govern their choices.
These are not exclusively analytical questions. They also concern strategic direction, organizational accountability, and the authority to make decisions when objectives conflict.
My research examines these issues within a defined pharmaceutical development setting. The broader leadership relevance lies in recognizing that the information available to an organization and the decisions it ultimately makes are not necessarily aligned.
Published Research and Doctoral Status
Design and Execution of Sustainable Decentralized Clinical Trials
Singh et al. (2023).
Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 114(4), 802–809.
A review of sustainability considerations in guidance and frameworks for decentralized clinical trial design and execution.
Integrating Sustainability Pillars into Trial Design Decision-Making — Results of an International Survey
Singh et al. (2025).
Clinical and Translational Science, 18, e70241.
An international survey examining stakeholder perceptions of economic, environmental, and social sustainability priorities and trade-offs.
Sustainability-adjusted portfolio selection of Phase 3 drug development programs
Evidence gap, priorities, and a prespecified simulation framework for ranking under uncertainty.
ETH Zurich, 2026. Doctoral examination passed in September 2026. Degree conferral pending.
The thesis brings together six linked contributions, progressing from published research to conceptual and analytical work, a prespecified computational study, and exploratory analyses.
Research record
The complete thesis and its supporting methodological record will be referenced here following public availability through the ETH Zurich Research Collection.
Further bibliographic information is available through my ORCID profile ↗.