Life Science Innovation and the Restructuring of the Pharmaceutical Industry: Merger, Acquisition and Strategic Alliance Behaviour of Large Firms

When technological discontinuities and disruptive business models challenge dominant industry logics: Insights from the drugs industry

“…Young entrepreneurial companies also tended to cluster geographically, locating themselves near to universities and other research centers (Su and Hung, 2009;van Geenhuizen and Reyes-Gonzalez, 2007). Alliances and partnerships became essential ways for the large companies to access young entrants' innovations, and for the innovators, in turn, to access markets (Bianchi et al, 2011;Bradfield and ElSayed, 2009;Mittra, 2007;Rothaermel, 2000). Their structures generally involved large companies positioning their smaller innovative collaborators at the start of the value chain (Rothaermel, 2001b), and such network orchestration is seen as one of the drug industry's three main activities today -"Firms need to be able to collaborate upstream and downstream, with small or large companies" (expert 17); "Networks are orchestrated by large firms that know how to manage the whole drug development" (expert 12) -and as necessary to bring together all the dispersed resources required for the whole drug discovery and development process (Powell et al, 1996;Staropoli, 1998).…”

Mergers and Acquisitions in Pharmaceutical Industry as a Growth Strategy: An Investigation Upon Practice

“…The merger, acquisition and strategic alliances offer various way outs to the companies in terms of the uncertainties brought by technological shocks, budgetary deficits that may occur due to innovativeness and the will of having commercial sovereignty (Mittra, 2007). With these strategic moves, the enterprises obtain positive returns such as decreasing the risks that may come across, overcoming the challenges in supplying fund and increasing the profit and market share.…”

Specialized organizations and ambidextrous clusters in the open innovation paradigm

“…Cisco Systems maintains close ties with organizations specialized in exploration like Stanford University (for example, since 2002, the president of Stanford, John Hennessy, has been a member of the CiscoÕs Board of Directors and the firm funds several research programs at the university). (Mitra, 2007). Another evidence of the diffusion of the A&D strategy among large high-tech firms is the evolution of the number of start-ups backed by venture capital firms that has been acquired by large companies.…”