Is big pharma changing its innovation model?

Here is an interesting headline for the Wall Street Journal - Pfizer Plans to Lay Off Up to 800 Researchers:

Pfizer Inc. will lay off as many as 800 researchers Tuesday in a tacit admission that its laboratories have failed to live up to the tens of billions of dollars it has poured into them in recent years.

. . .

For years, big drug makers considered their R&D operations sacrosanct and focused their cutbacks on other departments, such as sales and manufacturing. But that is changing as industry executives conclude that in-house research isn't yielding enough drugs to justify its high costs.

Now, pharmaceutical companies think they can trim their research costs while still bringing the same, if not more, new drugs to market, either by buying the rights to promising molecules from smaller biotechnology companies or by purchasing those companies outright.

"R&D is still the heart and soul of a pharmaceutical company, but it doesn't always have to express itself as a company's own R&D, and that's what I'm seeing more and more," says David Canter, who headed Pfizer's Michigan labs until they shut down last year.

Sounds like big pharma is embracing the open innovation model.