vice-versa. The change from a ‘chance discovery’ model of scientific research to a
‘rational drug design’ model based on combinatorial chemistry, molecular biology,
high throughput screening, genomics and bioinformatics has meant that those regions
and localities with clusters of DBFs of various kinds, linked also to ICT firms and
knowledge management intermediaries are absolutely advantaged, even to the extent
of making ‘big pharma’ dependent on them for key knowledge of both the exploration
and exploitation kind. Increasingly such DBFs even manage the due diligence and
trial management processes, leaving ‘big pharma’ to exchange contracts with the DBF
networks for the license to market and distribute the hoped-for biopharmaceutical
drug at the end of the pipeline.
5. Which Are Leading Megacentres and What Is Regional Science Policy?
We have seen already that Boston is perhaps the leading biosciences megacentre, not
because it has the heaviest medical or even bioscientific research budgets, but because
it is presently one of, if not the leading centre for exploration research. So much so
that while the Swiss drug company Novartis announced in 2000 a path-breaking
agreement to spend $25 million on first access to the results of plant and microbial
biology research conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, in the heart of
the Northern California biotechnology cluster, in 2002 Novartis announced the
establishment of a $250 million Novartis Genomics Research Institute in Cambridge,
Massachusetts on the grounds that it was the leading exploration and exploitation
centre for genomics and post-genomics knowledge. Boston’s current primacy has not
been the product of the operations of the market mechanism alone. In 1999, $770
million of mainly public or charitable research funding was earned for medical and
bioscientific research. That figure is likely to have exceeded $1 billion shortly
afterwards. This was marginally less than the amount of National Institutes of Health
funding alone passing through the Northern California cluster in 1999, a statistic that
increased to $893 million in 2000 (CHI/PWC, 2002). Most of the exploration research
conducted in both Cambridge/Boston and Northern California is conducted in
institutions that are dependent on public funding, though private research foundations
are also functional in both. In Boston, the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council is an
active and successful biotechnology association that lobbies industry and political
forums at State and Federal levels, pressing for an FDA presence in Boston to offset
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