DIY Laboratories and business innovation ecosystems: The case of pharmaceutical industry

Abstract

This paper conducts an embedded case study to verify a conceptual framework by which biopharma research in Do-It-Yourself (DIY) laboratories can be integrated into Research and Development (R&D) networks of the pharmaceutical industry. As an early attempt to extend the perspective of business innovation ecosystem into the research on DIY laboratories, this study reveals three major findings. First, DIY laboratories, contract research organizations (CROs) and pharmaceutical firms interdependently position and link with each other in an innovation ecosystem for new drug development. Second, through properly managing the issues of resource utilization and innovation appropriability, CROs play important hub and knowledge broker roles in coordinating and aligning different priorities and expectations of the key players in this innovation ecosystem. Third, this study maps and verifies two knowledge transfer models through which novel research findings in DIY laboratories can be converted into real commercial returns.