Most R&D PM functions are built to report, not to lead. They track timelines, chair update meetings, and produce governance decks that executives review before making decisions that were, in many cases, already made elsewhere. They are present in the room but not in the conversation.
I have seen this pattern across organisations of every size — from early-stage biotechs to global top-10 pharma. And I have spent the better part of 25 years doing the same thing in each one: entering a PM function that was treated as overhead, and leaving it as a measurable strategic driver.
"The PM functions that earn their seat at the table are not the ones with the best templates. They are the ones that have made the organisation better at making decisions."
The question is what that transformation actually requires — not in theory, but in practice, having done it at CSL Behring, Roche, and Novartis.
The Overhead Trap
PM functions get positioned as overhead for a predictable reason: they are often built around process rather than outcome. The function is designed to ensure compliance with governance processes, maintain project tracking systems, and report status upward. These are legitimate activities. But they are support activities, not leadership activities — and the distinction matters enormously for how the function is perceived and resourced.
When a PM function is evaluated on the quality of its processes, it will optimise for process quality. When it is evaluated on the outcomes it drives — cycle time, decision quality, pipeline throughput — it will optimise for those outcomes instead. The difference in organisational positioning between those two modes is significant.
Three Shifts That Change the Conversation
The transition from overhead to strategic driver is not a single event. It is a deliberate sequence of capability investments and positioning choices. In my experience, three shifts are foundational:
The most important positioning change a PM function can make is to hold itself accountable for programme outcomes — cycle time, decision latency, stage gate success rates — not just for the quality of its governance processes. This requires defining metrics that reflect R&D performance, not PM activity, and then building the data infrastructure to track them. When a PM function can walk into a portfolio review and say "decision latency has decreased by 40% over the last two quarters and here is the programme impact," it is no longer an overhead function. It is a performance function.
PM functions in pharma R&D are frequently under-resourced in scientific and technical depth. Project managers who cannot engage credibly with scientific teams on the substance of the work — not just the schedule — will always be seen as administrators. Building a function where PMs combine project management expertise with genuine scientific literacy, regulatory understanding, and commercial awareness requires investment in structured development pathways, not just training courses. At CSL, the PM Academy was built precisely on this principle: 50+ project managers developed across a structured curriculum, with measurable advances in both capability and career progression.
PM functions often communicate in PM language — critical path, resource utilisation, gate criteria — that is precise within the function but opaque to the executives they need to influence. The shift to strategic language means framing programme status in terms of portfolio value, pipeline risk, and strategic options. A programme that is "eight weeks behind schedule" is a process statement. A programme where "a delay to the Phase II decision creates a six-month window for a competitor to establish market precedence in this indication" is a strategic statement. Same underlying fact; entirely different conversation.
Building It in Practice
The organisational change required to move a PM function from overhead to strategic driver is not primarily a process redesign. It is a culture and capability build — and it takes time.
At Roche, the pRED PPM Academy was built alongside a PM Maturity Benchmark Assessment that gave the function a clear baseline and a structured development pathway. At CSL Behring, the PM Data & Digital AI/ML Roadmap was not just a technology initiative — it was a capability signal to the organisation that the PM function was leading digital transformation, not following it. In both cases, the investment in capability changed the function's positioning as much as any governance redesign.
The PM Academy model — structured curriculum, competency frameworks, internal coaching, and defined career pathways — is the infrastructure that makes strategic positioning sustainable. It ensures that the function's capability grows with the organisation's needs, rather than remaining static while the pipeline and the science evolve around it.
The PM functions that earn their seat at the table are not the ones that have eliminated red items from the dashboard. They are the ones that have made the organisation better at making decisions — faster, with higher quality information, and with clearer accountability for outcomes. That is the standard worth building towards. And it is achievable, consistently, with the right combination of capability investment, positioning strategy, and the organisational will to measure what actually matters.