More broadly, Amgen's longtime chief scientific officer Sean Harper said in 2018 that "with the acquisition of deCODE we gained an industrial capability to do population genetics" that could provide human genetic validation for any target or compound. deCODE assessed Amgen's entire clinical pipeline within a month of the acquisition, delivering information that has helped to avoid clinical failures and prioritize and guide trials. Harper claims that this "target-first drug development" model enabled the company to address its own version of the industry's endemic productivity problem. He estimated that "just having strong genetic support for half your pipeline you can improve your rate of return on R&D investments by approximately 50%."  