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PROJECT MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE FOR PHARMA AND BIOTECH

Coordinate development programmes, specialists and regulatory requirements with confidence 

Pharma and biotech companies manage complex development, regulatory, quality, CMC, production and transformation initiatives in parallel. Programmes compete for highly specialised resources, while schedules, effort and outcomes remain uncertain, particularly in early development.

Can Do brings project, portfolio and resource planning together on one platform. Manage qualifications with a clear audit trail, identify capacity conflicts across projects early and integrate recurring regulatory processes into project plans.

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Research team working together in a laboratory

 

 

Why is project and resource management particularly demanding in pharma and biotech? 

 

Development programmes do not operate in isolation. Regulatory Affairs, Quality, CMC, Clinical Operations, Biostatistics, R&D, Production, Engineering, Validation and IT often support several programmes alongside operational work. This can create capacity conflicts within existing teams.

Development activities also depend on one another. Regulatory and quality initiatives may have limited scheduling flexibility, while early development projects must be planned before their dates, duration or resource requirements are precisely known.

Typical challenges for pharma, biotech and life sciences companies:

  • Specialists are needed across several programmes and operational responsibilities at the same time
  • Resource planning must account for the required skills and qualifications
  • Development, CMC, Regulatory, Quality and industrialisation have interdependent activities
  • Regulatory and compliance work competes with strategic initiatives
  • Early development projects must be planned despite uncertain schedules and effort estimates
  • External CRO, CDMO and specialist capacity may need to be included
  • New or rescheduled projects can cause resource, schedule and budget conflicts across the portfolio

 

 

Three practical ways to use Can Do in pharma and biotech  

 

Can Do helps pharma and biotech companies plan specialist resources across programmes, verify qualifications with a clear record and integrate recurring regulatory processes into project planning. 

1.) Verify qualifications and skills with a clear record 

Available capacity alone is not enough in pharma and biotech projects. Many tasks require people with specific skills and qualifications.

Can Do combines skill and resource management. Defined qualifications can have skill levels from 1 to 5, with supporting evidence such as certificates, confirmations and diplomas stored alongside them. 

AI can read submitted documents and check whether they match the relevant skill and level. Managers or HR then provide formal confirmation. 

With Can Do, you can: 

  • Document certificates and other qualification evidence 

  • Record skills and qualification levels systematically 

  • Use AI to check whether evidence matches the skill and level 

  • Combine multiple search criteria using AND/OR logic 

  • Have qualifications formally approved by managers or HR 

  • Find people with the right skills and available capacity 

<< See who is available and who holds the verified qualifications you need. >> 

 

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2.) Integrate regulatory processes into project plans systematically 

Development, CMC, Regulatory, Quality and industrialisation are linked by defined technical dependencies. Recurring regulatory processes must also be included in full and in the required order.

Can Do maps these dependencies through phases, work packages, milestones and cross-project links. Fixed building blocks can also be used for recurring technical or regulatory processes.

Their prescribed sequence cannot be changed, helping prevent required steps from being omitted when projects are created. Within a project, AI can also check whether the required tasks for regulatory work have been created with the intended scope.

With Can Do, you can: 

  • Map technical dependencies across projects 

  • Define recurring processes as fixed building blocks 

  • Safeguard prescribed sequences 

  • Make milestone and schedule dependencies transparent 

  • Use AI to check whether required work packages have been created 

 

 

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3.) Plan specialist capacity realistically across programmes

Regulatory, Quality, CMC, Clinical Operations and other specialists often support several programmes at once. Operational work, absences and other baseline commitments further reduce the capacity actually available for projects.

Can Do compares project demand with actual available capacity and highlights overload risks across projects.

With Can Do, you can: 

  • Account for baseline commitments and absences in capacity planning
  • Plan people, departments and skills across projects
  • Identify overload early
  • Identify suitable, available resources based on the skills required
  • Find available alternatives when individuals are overloaded
  • Plan teams and departments as generic resources where appropriate

 

 

 

Kapazitätsplanung

 

 

Include external CROs, CDMOs and specialists in capacity planning 

 

Not all required capacity is available in-house. External development, clinical, CMC or production services can also affect the feasibility of a project plan.

Can Do supports two approaches:

External company as capacity:
A CRO, CDMO or other service provider can be planned as a generic resource with a representative capacity. Individual employees do not need to be known.

Named external specialists:
External individuals can be planned like internal resources, with skills and maintained availability, and marked as external.

 

 

Manage development portfolios amid uncertainty  

Which development programmes can you pursue simultaneously with the resources available? What happens when a new project is added or an existing programme is delayed?

Can Do combines ongoing and planned initiatives with resource, budget, risk and project information. Multi-project management accounts for shared resources and dependencies across multiple projects.

With Can Do, you can: 

  • Review multiple portfolios in parallel
  • Account for capacity across portfolio boundaries
  • Check new projects for potential resource overload
  • Identify schedule and milestone dependencies across projects
  • Compare planned and actual costs against defined budgets
  • Compare specific portfolio and planning scenarios

Project scores can also provide a numerical basis for evaluation. Each company determines how its scores are calculated. Weighted portfolio objectives and each project’s contribution to them can also be recorded.

Explore portfolio and project management with Can Do

 

Plan early development projects without creating false precision  

In early development, only initial estimates are often available. Traditional project planning tends to require fixed dates and effort figures, implying a degree of precision that does not yet exist.

Can Do therefore supports planning with uncertain estimates. 

You can use estimates for:

    • Start

    • End

    • Duration

    • Effort

    • Resource requirements

    • Costs  

A low probability of occurrence can also be taken into account where appropriate. Can Do then examines potential conflicts involving people, skills, departments, dates, costs and budgets across the planning situations arising from those estimates. The displayed risk represents the proportion of assessed situations that fail.

Planning with uncertain estimates and scenario simulation are different

Planning with uncertain estimates
Can Do automatically assesses a large number of possible planning situations based on the estimates provided.

Scenario simulator
Managers create a limited number of specific alternatives and compare their effects.

 << Plan for the uncertainty that actually exists, rather than creating artificial precision. >>  

Safeguard GxP, regulatory and compliance projects alongside strategic initiatives  

Regulatory, quality, validation and other mandatory projects may have limited scheduling flexibility. They also draw on the same specialists and budgets as strategic development and transformation projects.

Can Do lets you manage these must-do projects in a separate portfolio.

You can also:

  • Freeze a project’s start and end dates

  • Allow frozen projects to be rescheduled only after the person who froze them has unfrozen them

  • Restrict access to sensitive projects to authorised users

  • Use BI reporting to support portfolio management

  • Show resource overload even when the protected project causing it is not visible to a user

Regulatory, Quality or the responsible function remains accountable for deciding whether an initiative is mandatory.

Align project portfolios with defined budgets

For funding-dependent biotech companies, it is essential to understand how development projects fit within a defined budget.

Can Do lets you define separate cost and effort budgets at portfolio level for specific periods, such as months. Planned and actual project costs are compared against each period’s financial budget, making it clear when a budget is exhausted. Depending on the settings, remaining funds can be carried forward to the next period.

Finance or corporate planning sets the financial framework. Can Do helps align the project portfolio with those limits; it does not provide company-wide liquidity or cash-runway calculations.

 

Greater visibility across complex pharma and biotech projects 

Can Do brings portfolio, project, resource, skill, budget and risk management together in one planning environment. This gives managers a reliable planning basis for decisions about programmes, capacity and priorities. 

The benefits: 

  • Visibility across ongoing and planned development programmes 

  • More realistic planning of scarce specialist capacity 

  • Account for skills and verified qualifications in resource planning 

  • Integrate recurring regulatory processes into projects systematically 

  • Make cross-project dependencies transparent 

  • Include early development projects despite uncertain data 

  • Identify resource, schedule and budget conflicts early 

  • Plan internal and external capacity together 

  • Compare specific planning scenarios 

 

Multiprojektmanagement – alle Ressourcen, Auslastungen und Risiken im Blick

 

Who is Can Do designed for in pharma companies?

Head of PMO / Project Management Office 

You manage development, lifecycle, regulatory and transformation initiatives across programmes. 

With Can Do, you can:

      • Structure multiple portfolios transparently
      • Identify resource and budget conflicts
      • Assess new initiatives against existing capacity
      • Compare specific planning scenarios

R&D / Development Management  

You coordinate development programmes with substantial uncertainty and numerous technical dependencies. 

With Can Do, you can:

      • Plan early initiatives using uncertain estimates
      • Map development dependencies
      • Schedule specialists across projects
      • Understand the effects of project delays

CMC / Technical Operations / Production 

You coordinate specialists, development activities and transitions towards industrialisation and production. 

With Can Do, you can:

      • Reflect technical dependencies in planning
      • Review resources across several programmes
      • Identify capacity conflicts early
      • Include internal and external resources

Regulatory Affairs & Quality Management 

You need to ensure that required processes and qualification requirements are reflected in project plans. 

With Can Do, you can:

      • Define recurring processes as fixed building blocks
      • Safeguard required sequences
      • Manage qualification evidence systematically
      • Safeguard must-do projects and their deadlines

Executive management and portfolio managers in biotech 

You need to align development programmes with available resources and, in funding-dependent companies, defined budget limits. 

With Can Do, you can:

      • Compare portfolio options
      • Set cost and effort budgets for specific periods
      • Compare project costs against defined budgets
      • Understand the effects of different project combinations

Book a demo with a Can Do expert

 

Take the first step towards greater efficiency

Book a live demo of Can Do, tailored to your requirements.

 

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