Raising costs, ever-increasing regulatory hurdles, and mounting difficulties in finding the next blockbuster drug are just a few of the challenges Big Pharma currently has to face for its research and development process, the heart of its risky business. Big Data claims to be full of insights that Big Pharma need to find a way of harvesting, which could lead to new compounds. Academics, Big Data start-ups, and pharmaceutical companies have focused their research efforts on analytic tools and data technologies to store, collect, analyse, and extract these insights from massive data sets. However, the key question is whether the Big Data hype really does have the claimed accelerating effect on the complex research and development process or if it actually creates another hurdle for Big Pharma innovation. Malena Johannes' timely book sheds light on this question by examining the top 5 pharmaceutical companies and provides an overview on the status quo of Big Data applications within the pharmaceutical industry.