Open & Collaborative Innovation in Life Science R&D

Why this event?

Whilst there has been several “open-innovation” events recently looking across various industries, and there has been many conferences looking at innovation in general for the life sciences industry, this will be the only conference specifically looking at open-innovation specifically for biopharma and medical devices.

What is the definition of “open-innovation?”

Open-innovation is the process of allowing a much broader group of potential external research partners (often previously unknown) to have access to R&D challenges and IP and the opportunity to help solve such problems. The principle of mass collaboration is widely accepted as increasing the chance of innovation, however the practice in life sciences is often much more difficult due to often long term projects that are high risk and heavily IP protected. Open-innovation is often vastly different in nature to classical R&D alliances which are often more formal, more restrictive and more “closed” in terms of who collaborates. Often, by pooling resources and risks with a wider array of partners, smaller, less cash-rich organisations can afford to take bigger risks as well as benefiting from pooled know-how and experience. The emergence of web-based tools to enhance “crowd sourcing” potential, as well as to improve knowledge sharing is another reason for the emergence of open-innovation recently across a variety of high-tech, knowledge-intensive industries, including healthcare.

A brief overview of open-innovation in life sciences

“Open-innovation” is a concept that has been discussed a lot in recent times across many knowledge-intensive high-tech industries, including one as innovation-dependent as the global life sciences industry. The idea of pooling risk, costs and resources, whilst hopefully increasing R&D productivity at the same time through collaborative innovation is attractive in theory, although difficult in practice in an industry when IP protection is paramount. The Human Genome Project, for example, is the greatest successful example of life science innovation and through “open” collaborative channels. Drug developers for example, are facing an acute R&D productivity crisis, with ever-decreasing numbers of molecules ever reaching the market, whilst R&D spending has been increasing rapidly at the same time. Furthermore, both regulators and payers are increasingly risk-averse, and “innovation” is being redefined in terms of what the customer needs and what they’re prepared to pay for. Traditionally, life science companies have been slower than other high-tech industries in adopting new methods and approaches to stimulating innovation through “open-source” channels. It is true that the industry has experienced great successes throughout it’s recent history in collaborating with smaller, and more dynamic biotechs and universities via joint R&D partnerships. However, it is the latter organisations that have proven to be the main source of novel first and best in class products in recent years, and the question remains if larger biopharma and medical tech firms can now truly open-up collaborations to larger, more diverse, and more competitive alliances. Hesitation and skepticism remains in R&D departments and at the board level, especially in terms of unresolved IP protection issues, how to contractually share the risks and potential returns, how to measure success with often unproven open business models. A cultural change would be needed for open-innovation to really take off and this takes time. Despite such uncertainty, many large life science companies are now dedicated to “thinking outside the box” in R&D and open-innovation, and IP-sharing (especially as the “pre-competitive stage) is increasingly considered a viable alternative for bringing more novel, high-quality products to the market, faster, at lower cost and with much less risk.

Audience profile:

Life science industry: VPs, Directors of discovery, R&D, innovation, chief scientific officers, therapy area heads, licensing, business development alliances and collaborations

Academia, technology transfer, government and non-profit research institutes

Why attend?:

-Understand what is meant by “open-innovation” in practice and how this can work in life sciences

-Hear real-life examples of success in from pharmaceutical companies, academic-led consortium, non-profits and public-private partnerships

-Appreciate if the benefits outweigh the costs, as well as answers to the questions what? With who? When? Why? How? And how much?

-Determine how best to share information, risks and costs with R&D partners, whilst protecting intellectual property and maximising the benefits of joint synergies

-Find out what are the do’s and don’ts in opening-up R&D to outsiders

-Discover if “open-innovation” can truly improve R&D productivity, compared to the current model and strong tradition of R&D collaborations and alliances.