Regional science policy and the growth of knowledge megacentres in bioscience clusters

Introduction

The crucial matter of interest to this paper is the rapid decline in the capabilities of
large pharmaceuticals companies (‘big pharma’) to develop in-house new therapeutic
drug treatments, particularly those deriving from biotechnology, compared to the
rapid rise in that precise capability on the part of networks of small, dedicated
biotechnology firms (DBFs). This is commented upon in Orsenigo et al., (2001) but
these authors remain reluctant to see the facts they observe as a weakness of ‘big
pharma’. Rather, the latter is seen retaining power through its control over the former
through financing R&D contracts with milestone payments and licensing agreements,
managing due diligence, and marketing and distributing final treatments or drugs. In
this contribution we will present the shift in tacit and exploration knowledge to DBFs
as signifying a crisis for multinational drug companies. For while some other kinds of
multinational corporations adopted a strategy of downsizing central laboratories and
decentralising R&D both to branches and to the supply chain (e.g. Dupont’s major
reduction in its central Wilmington facility; GE’s restructuring of Schenectady’s role;
and the fact that aerospace firms like Bombardier of Canada routinely buy all R&D
from a globally dispersed market; Niosi, 2002), such attenuation of the R&D function
has not been sought by pharmaceuticals firms, but rather represents a failure to deal
with a thoroughgoing paradigm shift. The paper will examine the nature of that shift
and explore ways in which some ‘big pharma’ is seeking to manage its response.

The paper has four key sections:

• The first examines the knowledge management mechanisms by which DBFs
tackle the R&D or ‘drug discovery’ process and determine the nature of their
specific advantage,

• The second assesses the adequacy of these mechanisms and how industry and
intermediaries judge they need to be strengthened,

• The third examines the future of big pharma concerning the cognitive
paradigm shift linking ‘Mode 2’ knowledge production (Gibbons et al., 1994),
the demise of ‘discovery’ methods and rise of ‘rational drug design’, and fine
chemistry versus molecular biology,

<<   1   2   3   4   5   6   >>

More intriguing information