Now that we have 4-way conveyor belts, a lot of our lives have become much more enjoyable, but there is an idea I have had for a while that actually comes from another game I used to play alot, Free Enterprise. Now, I am not really sure how it worked in that game as I havent played it in some time, but I remember that the machines would have conveyor belts. The use of them was basically so that your employees wouldnt get the bright idea of jumping into the machine input, but it also helped increase the efficiency.
one thing they did do, is that the belts could go underneath each other. This would help with crossings, but also let you more easily reach those hard to get to places.
My idea for Big Pharma is that you can make conveyor belts go underground with only two requirements. To go underground or come up, they need to have 1 tile for the mechanism go down (or up) and that they are much more expensive then regular belts. Instead of it costing $100, they could, for example, cost $500 per belt.
I am trying to find a picture of the conveyor belts in Free Enterprise, but as is the case of most fringe niche games that are nearly 20 years old, there arent many.
Right now this game (which is really fun for me as you may have guessed by me playing the game Free Enterprise) is more like a game of tetris (which has its benefits) than a pharma company. I think this might help balance the two sides to it by allowing you to build schematically simpler production lines while still being able to make the production more complex.
Hope I explained it easily enough, if something is unclear in my explanation just ask or if there is something else to comment, dont be shy.