PARTNERSHIP AND INNOVATION IN THE LIFE SCIENCES - Innovation in the Biopharmaceutical Industry - page 111

Partnering in
Research

Partnering in
Distribution

Partnering in
Development

The Virtual
BioPharma Firm

Partnering in
Sales

Partnering in
Production

Partnering in
Marketing

Fig. 1. The Virtual BioPharma Firm.

Collaborations between companies operating in the life sciences space have led to
a more flexible organisational model: one which enables companies to focus on one
part of the value chain and outsource activities in others. Emerging organisational
models for BioPharma companies now range from the traditional integrated R&D
approach to more “virtual” models (Fig. 1). In this latter mode the key competence
of a company is centred on its ability to find appropriate technologies and partners,
and build on its experience of managing expensive, complex and high-risk R&D and
commercialization projects—an endeavour that requires large financial outlay and
the assumption of substantial market risk. This approach needs strong leadership
and significant commitment of senior management time as partnering is a resource
intensive process.
Universities have long been an important source of commercially exploitable
technology for pharmaceutical companies (Henderson et al. , 1994). The universi-
ties, in turn, have benefited from an exchange of information and ideas with these
companies (Cockburn, I, and R Henderson, 1996). In recent years many universities
in the US, some countries in Europe, and to a lesser extent in Japan have sought to
proactively increase their industrial partnering activities. This eagerness to partner
has been driven, in part, by the realisation that collaborations with industry can be
mutually beneficial, and in some cases by the decline in direct funding for research
and teaching by governments. In the leading universities of the US, UK, and other