LONDON (Reuters) – Big drugmakers, under pressure to streamline operations in the face of rising costs and slowing sales, are looking to the automotive industry for tips on tuning up their profit engines.

Cars and medicines may seem to have little in common but executives are starting to join the dots between the sectors, applying the lessons of “lean” car production systems and fragmented value chains to the world of pharmaceuticals.

It shows a new openness to outside ideas by Big Pharma.

GlaxoSmithKline, for example, teamed with McLaren in September to get innovation and process know-how from its Formula One engineers, mirroring a 2009 move by AstraZeneca to tap manufacturing expertise from Jaguar Land Rover, part of India’s Tata Motors.

The 250-strong consulting arm of German sports carmaker Porsche, for its part, has targeted pharmaceuticals as a sector ripe for advice.

That may raise eyebrows because profitability in the drugs industry, with a 10 percent pretax return on invested assets, is roughly double that in the global auto sector.

But as drugmakers face healthcare cuts, a record wave of patent expiries and increased regulatory hurdles for new drugs, they may need to take a page from carmakers’ playbook when it comes to ruthless streamlining and cost cutting.

LONDON (Reuters) – Big drugmakers, under pressure to streamline operations in the face of rising costs and slowing sales, are looking to the automotive industry for tips on tuning up their profit engines.

Cars and medicines may seem to have little in common but executives are starting to join the dots between the sectors, applying the lessons of “lean” car production systems and fragmented value chains to the world of pharmaceuticals.

It shows a new openness to outside ideas by Big Pharma.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK.L: Quote, Profile, Research), for example, teamed with McLaren in September to get innovation and process know-how from its Formula One engineers, mirroring a 2009 move by AstraZeneca (AZN.L: Quote, Profile, Research) to tap manufacturing expertise from Jaguar Land Rover, part of India’s Tata Motors (TAMO.NS: Quote, Profile, Research).

The 250-strong consulting arm of German sports carmaker Porsche (VOWG_p.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) (PSHG_p.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), for its part, has targeted pharmaceuticals as a sector ripe for advice.

That may raise eyebrows because profitability in the drugs industry, with a 10 percent pretax return on invested assets, is roughly double that in the global auto sector.

But as drugmakers face healthcare cuts, a record wave of patent expiries and increased regulatory hurdles for new drugs, they may need to take a page from carmakers’ playbook when it comes to ruthless streamlining and cost cutting.