strongest, are ‘arm’s length’ or market exchanges more or less pronounced than
‘untraded interdependencies’ (Dosi, 1988)? Third, what response does big pharma
make, if any, to the shift towards ‘rational drug design’? Are there instances where in-
house capabilities to engage fully with ‘Mode 2’ knowledge production (e.g. through
acquisition, partnership alliances or attempts to mimic certain conventions more
commonly associated with DBFs, like stock options for innovative scientists or intra-
preneurship). What distinctive strategies are being pursued? Finally, what are key
barriers to control for big pharma, and what strategies are pursued to accommodate
the current deficits in in-house drug discovery? What lessons have been learned from
past experience and what new lessons are being learned currently to adjust to the
predominant knowledge value chain relationships and interactions?
Knowledge sources, including tacit/codified, internal/external, contact/intermediary,
and local/global, are key subjects of inquiry of direct relevance to regional science
and notions surrounding regional science policy. Number and type of network
partners, mechanisms for assembling partnerships, types of project and typical
expertise requirements are important to assess and compare ‘social capital’ versus
‘arm’s length’ kinds of interaction (Cooke, 2002a). To help move towards some
concrete information about this, preliminary research within such networks will be
drawn from a study being conducted in partnership with a biotechnology incubator
named Oxford BioTechNet and incubators in Germany (BioM, Munich), Israel
(Jerusalem Biotechnology Incubator), France (GenoPole, Paris) and Italy (Consorzo
Ventuno, Sardinia), based on focus-group inquiry sessions with a variety of
biotechnology project network members exploring the above and related issues in
great depth, with a view to identification of the emergent knowledge
exploration/exploitation model, its strengths and weaknesses, in comparative
perspective, and how weaknesses or gaps might be tackled. The second source of
information will be secondary information on big pharma companies. This evidence is
both quantitative and qualitative, concerning R&D performance (input-output
measures) drugs in development, drug approvals, in-licensing, out-licensing,
patenting, sub-contracting of R&D, partnerships, alliances, project-management and
knowledge-management issues. The capabilities and strategies of big pharma facing a
‘Mode 2’ knowledge production regime will thus be assessed.