Decision-making under uncertainty in drug development

In pharmaceutical industry, decision-makers have to decide whether to continue drug development projects which are very expensive, risky and long. Such decisions are made collectively, under a high degree of uncertainty and in non-emergency situations. The major problem in this context is indecision. In order to improve the decision-making process in practice, we need to characterize and analyze situations of decision-making under uncertainty. In this paper, we propose a new definition of uncertainty that takes human factors in its characterization into account. Then, we present a typology of uncertainty generators that helps us recognize and explore its causal factors. Additionally, we represent decision-making process in pharmaceutical R\&D illustrating the role of different actors and their interactions in decision-making. This should help decision-makers adopt proactive practices instead of reactive ones.