An anonymous R&D exec from an unnamed drugmaker opines that the industry should emulate Hollywood in an essay in The Scientist. In particular, our operative suggests big pharma should closely study the goings on at Pixar, because the wildly successful animation studio nurtures employee interactions across different projects and fosters a “collaborative environment.”

By contrast, our informed mole carps that big pharma suffers because of the “psychic and structural silos” that are characterized by command-and-control leadership. In other words, inflexible thinking ignores scenarios that don’t conform to a chosen view of the world. Making things worse has been a generation of leaders whose backgrounds are legal or managerial, not rooted in science.

Such thinking should be rated “R,” as in reasonable. It’s no secret that shooting for blockbusters gets harder as the science gets harder. So changing the culture isn’t a bad idea (biotechs are certainly more nimble). But emulating Hollywood, well, that may be as difficult as curing cancer, given anxieties over government regulation and mounting consumer demands.

No question, though, that big pharma is fast becoming a tearjerker.