Research network position and innovative performance: Evidence from the pharmaceutical industry

Övrigt konferensbidrag, 2013

Building upon the literature demonstrating the importance of collaborative research and networks for the development of new pharmaceuticals, this paper describes co-publication networks in phar- maceutical cancer research and analyzes how the position within these networks and collaboration with different partners is related to the product innovation of both pharmaceutical and biotechnol- ogy firms. This paper analyzes these issues through econometric analysis as well as social network analysis using a unique dataset based on scientific co-publications, new drug approvals, and firm level data. We observe that the number of organizations in co-publication networks expands faster than the collaborations within the networks. Global pharmaceutical companies tend to be highly connected and occupy central positions in the co-publication networks. Direct and indirect linkages, particularly to academic institutions, are beneficial for product innovations. In contrast to most of the existing literature, we find that co-publication of pharmaceutical companies with biotechnol- ogy companies is a rather rare event – and we do not find a significant association to the firm’s innovative performance.