The pharmaceutical companies have announced new strategies to increase

Meaning:
1. The pharma companies have announced new strategies
2. The strategies are meant to increase the number of drugs in the pipeline
3. The new strategies are then explained.


1. in that is a conjunction which appropriately starts a clause. It also does a good job linking the two clauses - The second explains the strategies talked about in the first clause.
2. Here to increase is a way better idiom when compared to for increasing, since it indicates purpose (infinitive of purpose). GMAT always prefers an infintive phrase to a 'for + [gerund]' construction when expressing intent.
3. 'They' is the subject pronoun in the second clause and therefore unambiguously refers back to the subject of the first clause.


1. In one interpretation of the sentence, by the creation of is horribly stating that it was the announcement that was done by doing the creation of the partnerships. "The companies have announced .... by the creation of ..."
2. 'to increase in their development pipelines the number of new drugs' construction is awful sounding.


1. Rejected for the same reason as option B Pt 1 - 'by creating'


1. for increasing is always less preferred to to increase, when one is stating the purpose of something.
2. and creating has broken the link between the two clauses, and hence there is no way to tell whether the partnerships had anything to do with the new strategies.

E.
1. Same reason as option D - for increasing
2. 'Increase in number of new development pipeline drugs' is not as clear meaning wise as 'Increase in the number of new drugs in development pipelines'.
3. in the creation of - No good reason justifying usage of this phrase.

IMO Option A is correct.