The Triple Helix: International Cases and Critical Summary - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 69

• Intra-industry collaboration
Companies form alliances with each other to achieve synergy in R&D efforts,
expand product pipelines, and leverage each other's expertise and resources. These
alliances take a number of forms, including one-way licenses, cross-licenses, R&D
collaborations, and commercial and sales partnerships, in a wide range of product
modalities such as proteins, peptides, and small molecules (see Song 2004 ).
• Academic-industry partnership
In successful life science clusters, academic institutions and companies are
mutually engaged. Through technology transfer, institutions license their gov-
ernment-funded technologies to companies for commercial development. Institu-
tions may also conduct private research sponsored by companies. Institutions'
research expertise helps companies' business; companies provide institutions with
strategic directions of commercializing new ideas.
• Academic-industry-public partnerships
In leading life science clusters, academic institutions and companies are also
involved with governments and local communities to shape public policy, and
push the economic agenda forward. In the late 1980 s to early 1990 s when public
understanding of biosciences was foggy, the U.C. campuses and Stanford
University's public seminars and papers took a lead role in addressing public
concerns in the State of California (Song 2004 ).
The intensity of these collaborations is an essential stimulant for research
innovation and creativity. It helps cluster entities remain current on the industry's
rapidly evolving technical aspects, and gain access to information, financial
resources, and alliance opportunities. Previous studies of the biotechnology
industry showed that the number of network ties that a biotech firm or institution
has within a cluster, as well as its position and centrality in relation to other firms
in the cluster, can affect performance. ''In the short term, firms lacking in alliances
will be slower to generate research discoveries, obtain patents, and turn scientific
results into marketable products. In the long run, firms that learn to manage diverse
portfolios of collaboration, involving multiple projects at different stages of
development, are less likely to fail.'' 2 The energy of these interactions also
contributes to the vitality of the cluster as a whole.
2 Walter W. Powell et al., ''Network Position and Firm Performance: Organizational Returns to
Collaboration in the Biotechnology Industry''.