Benefits and spillovers in academic alliances and research collaboration between pharmaceutical firms and universities

The panel consisted of chair Professor Isabel Maria Bodas Freitas,  (GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management & Broman scholar guest researcher at U-GOT KIES), Professor Magnus Gulbrandsen (University of Oslo), Dr Susanna Myhre, Director, Academic Alliances (AstraZeneca), and Professor Mark Flynn (Global Edge MedTech Consulting and University of Newcastle).

The panel started discussing the different types of collaboration agreements that large knowledgeable firms engage in. A large number of examples was given on several different types of collaboration. Large knowledgeable firms develop a number of different “templates” that are used when drafting the specific collaborative agreements. The choice of the type of collaboration agreement depends on the expected type of spillovers from the project. For example:

Collaboration with university partners only, is expected to generate spillovers mainly through publications. The benefits for the large firms to participate on these are mostly associated with possibilities to enhance the idea generation activities of large knowledge firms. These projects also allow the firm to become the preferred industrial partner for top scientists. Collaboration agreements on projects on the pipeline of the large knowledgeable firm, especially if with other firms, require a more detailed account of different outcomes and the sharing of those potential outcomes.

It was then advanced that often collaborative relationships, even with universities, evolve from a more transactional mode, where possibility for spillovers is relatively scarce, to projects involving large possibility for spillovers such as joint PhD thesis, application to public grants, access to qualified employees, and so on.

Who would benefit from spillovers?

Next we discussed about who benefit mostly from spillovers from collaborations. Examples provided allowed us to advance that scale-up firms are those that may benefit most from spillovers from collaborations (Start-ups lack resources to exploit those).

However, mostly because of time, scale-up firms lack capabilities to recognize the different types of spillovers that could help them to grow. Rather, they tend to keep their attention on a very reduced set of learning and growing opportunities. The conclusion regarding this point was that scale-up firms need to be more educated on how they can benefit from spillovers.

Our attention then moved to the spillovers that benefit non-partners and eventually the society at large. The examples provided showed that in some specific circumstances, outcomes of pipeline projects are used to signal the social responsibility of large knowledgeable firms. This mostly occurs when the R&D project is expected to provide a small economic return to the large capable industrial partners. In that case, if the opportunity emerge/is created, these projects are repurposed to allow maximum spillovers to the public in general and sometimes also to small local business.

It was a rich in-depth discussion of the benefits and spillovers in university-industry collaboration based on the experience of practitioners. Despite the insights the panel provided, it was concluded that more academic and practitioner efforts are needed to advance current understanding of how and when university-industry collaborations can foster strategic spillovers to other projects and to non-partners.

Author: Professor Isabel Bodas Freitas, Chair of the panel