Pharmaceutical companies are undergoing major changes to cope with the new challenges of the modern economy. The globalisation of the business, the diversity and complexity of new drugs, the increasing tightness of capital and the diminishing protection provided by patents are some of the factors driving these changes. All stages of the business value chain are suffering the impact: from the development of new drugs to the management of the manufacturing and marketing networks. This paper describes an optimisation based approach to selecting both a product development and introduction strategy, and a capacity planning and investment strategy.