According to the study Gone Tomorrow? A Call to Promote Medical Innovation, Create Jobs, and Find Cures in America, the US is facing serious challenges when it comes to medical innovation. It will become difficult for America to maintain its position as the global leader in medical innovation.
The study covers several points that can boost medical innovation such as the importance of public-private collaborations; government support for research, technology transfer and IP protection; a modernized regulatory policy and approval process; and capital investment.
These points are important challenges for medical innovation. However, I consider differences between biotechnology SMEs and large pharmaceutical companies as a challenge for medical innovation as well. Specifically the lacking ability of big pharma companies to develop radical innovative technologies. Strategic management is very important for medical innovation. My research concerns the ability of explorative innovation of large pharmaceutical companies. Where these large companies are currently looking at biotechnology SMEs for innovative technologies, one might think why pharmaceutical companies are not exploring internal innovation capabilities. If they’d develop such capabilities they might also be more efficient in retaining technologies or projects acquired from biotechnology SMEs. This is the basic philosophy behind my research and I hope to find ways for big pharma to increase their capabilities of explorative innovation.