To measure is to know: an approach to CADD performance metrics.

With the financial and productivity challenges currently facing the pharmaceutical industry, there is constant pressure to justify resources and improve efficiency. With process-driven activities, understanding the contribution of these resources is reasonably straightforward. By contrast, measuring the contribution of knowledge workers is less obvious. Here, we present an impact-oriented approach to assessing the performance of an industrial computer-assisted drug design group. We discuss how these metrics are used to understand and optimize resource allocation in support of drug discovery programs.