Alliance strategy as a competitive strategy for successively creative new product development: the proof of the co-evolution of creativity and efficiency in the Japanese pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

Aimed at analyzing the continuity of core competence in a core field, the behavior of 11 Japanese pharmaceutical firms over the last two decades was analyzed. This study demonstrates that firms could maintain originality as a core competence in ongoing new product development (NPD) by utilizing a licensed alliance product as a tool for maintaining or injecting this originality. This finding was demonstrated by a comparative study of the core fields of each firm in the Japanese pharmaceutical industry.