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The purpose of this paper is to study the development of the biotechnology industry at the industry and firm level when the financing environment becomes hostile and assess the reasons for this development.

An organizational evolution perspective to analyze the case of the German biotech sector was applied and its response to the hostile financing environment in the years 2002‐2004, which followed the burst of the high‐tech bubble at the stock markets. Population ecology and data from biotech reports to investigate the pattern of external adaptation processes at the industry level were used. The evolutionary economics perspective, multiple case studies of bioventures, and biotech reports to study internal adaptation processes at the firm level was employed.

The assumption of both external and internal adaptation processes was found in parallel is necessary to explain the evolution of the biotech industry in a hostile financing environment. Although external adaptation takes place to some extent through insolvencies and a reduced rate of new firm foundations, many bioventures adapt internally by downsizing, changing their business models, and entering into strategic alliances and M&As. This results in surprisingly weak consolidation at the industry level.

This paper provides an explanation why the consolidation of the German biotech industry in 2002‐2004 was much weaker than expected by experts. Moreover, the paper shows that application of population ecology and evolutionary economics in parallel well describes industry evolution and organizational change. Finally, the paper demonstrates how bioventures can adapt their financing strategies to hostile environments.

An emerging stream of literature has observed that project-based organizations rely increasingly on a network of collaborations originating from the ongoing process of creating and dissolving relationships that bring new project opportunities. Project-based networks are widespread in knowledge-intensive and creative industries, such as life-science and biotechnology, nanotechnology, and software, film, and music industry. This chapter examines the structural characteristics of project-based network-ties in German biotech. We focus on the consequences of local versus international network ties for the innovative success of German biotechnology firms. The findings of our longitudinal event history analysis indicate that the most valuable learning drivers are international research alliances and centrality within the international research network. Surprisingly, we do not find any local effects: neither the density of a local research cluster, nor its diversity or age is of significance. Our results shed new light on the relevance of international linkages for firms that are engaged in project-based learning networks.

Purpose – This study explores subsidiaries' local network embeddedness and how it contributes to localised subsidiary innovation output from a social network perspective. In particular, we are interested in analysing the consequences of local network density, diversity and, subsidiaries' network position on its innovation outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach – Data are derived from a longitudinal quantitative study of the entire R&D network within one of the largest life science cluster in Germany, the ‘BioRegion Rhein-Neckar-Dreieck’.

Findings – Our findings indicate that the size (density) of the local network has an inverted U-shaped effect on the innovation outcomes of MNC subsidiaries. Our findings further indicate that a strong brokerage position in the local network has a significant positive influence on the innovation output while a position in the core of the network has a significant negative effect on the innovation output.

Research implications – Our results shed new light on the relationship between local embeddedness, brokerage, the danger of overembeddedness and innovation output of MNC subsidiaries.

To maintain and enhance innovation performance, many firms nowadays look for resources from external sources such as strategic alliances and regional network embeddedness. While considering the important interdependencies among different alliances, research has established an alliance portfolio perspective. From an alliance portfolio perspective, firms can consciously configure the dimensions of their alliance portfolios such as partner characteristics, relational properties, or structural properties. However, within the context of alliance portfolio configuration, the role of regional networks has been largely overlooked. As most high-tech firms are regionally clustered, this is an important research gap. In addressing this gap, this study explores the link between regional network density, alliance portfolio configuration, and its contribution to firm innovation performance. We examine how regional network density and alliance partner diversity influences firm level innovation output. We also investigate the moderating effect of overall network partner status and partner diversity on the link between regional network density and innovation performance. Our empirical evidence is derived from a longitudinal quantitative study of 1,233 German biotechnology firms. We find that regional network density and alliance partner diversity has an inverted U-shape effect on firm level innovation performance. However, overall network status as well as alliance partner diversity negatively moderates the link between regional network density and innovation output. Thus, our study contributes to a better understanding of the link between regional networks, alliance portfolio configuration, and firm level innovation performance.

This study aims to identify and assess the use of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) performance metrics for small- and medium-sized German pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

In depth qualitative interviews with senior key informant executives involved with recent M&A were conducted. Unlike previous studies, the role of the interviews was to identify and uncover the use of a broad set of success metrics to add to a fuller understanding of post-M&A behaviour, leading to a more accurate evaluation of post-M&A performance.

Results from interviews suggest that important M&A success metrics include having a successful organisation, integrated cultures, a high employee retention rate, gaining new technology knowledge, overall economic enhancement, increases in patent-protected products, increases in clinical success rates (perished rate assessment) and increases in the share price. In general, expert interviewees stated that they would use a combination of the success metrics and monetary tools to assess post-M&A success.

This study identifies and uncovers a series of different M&A performance success metrics being in prominent use. The use of a combination of metrics is highlighted as being a relatively unique research finding.

The paper aims to take stock of China’s recent biopharmaceutical industry development by analyzing product innovation and changes in the firms’ product portfolios during the five-year period between 2012 and 2017.

The paper introduces a classification of biopharmaceutical products. By applying the classification to the product data of China’s drug regulator, the CFDA, it becomes possible to trace the developments within the sector by looking at changes in the number of firms within each subgroup and changes in the number of subgroups in which each firm is involved. The classification allows an evaluation of the latest product innovation achievements.

The paper demonstrates a mild shakeout of firms in the relatively long-existing domestic market segments, a trend toward more specialized product portfolios and an enduring prevalence of innovation strategies aimed at exploiting relatively unpopulated domestic market niches instead of pioneering entirely new products. Especially the capability of upgrading to second-generation protein therapeutics has become a key criterion for separating the wheat and the chaff in China’s domestic sector. The paper moreover points out the relevance of acquisitions as a corporate growth strategy.

The research does not consider complementary indicators, product pipelines in particular. Future research should compare patterns across emerging economies.

The paper is unique in using the CFDA database for systematic academic research on (bio)pharmaceutical innovation and in introducing a biopharmaceutical product classification to trace innovative activities and changes in corporate product portfolios over time.

The creation of partnerships among companies, governments and universities can improve innovation and the technological development of institutions. As innovation is a multidimensional concept, more nuanced research is needed to identify, which dimensions of innovation firms should focus on them. This paper aims to investigate the influence of attitude to knowledge sharing (KS) factors, learning organization and creativity on the innovation in marketing biotechnology firms. So, the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of learning organization, attitude to KS, creativity, information technology (IT) acceptance, KS culture and trust on the innovation by presenting a new framework and a model.

The structural equation modeling technique is used to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement of the provided model. Data were collected by questionnaires. A case study was carried out in 100 marketing biotechnology firms in the Tehran of Iran. In this paper, smart partial least squares 2.0 was used to evaluate the measurement.

The result showed that all hypotheses of this research are proved. Also, the results have shown that the attitude to KS, learning organization and creativity affect the innovation in marketing biotechnology firms. As an overall result, the managers should create an enhanced knowledge bank to increase and encourage the KS among employees, thus creating and enhancing innovation in organizations. Also, the results have shown that marketing shortages were mostly connected to access to human resources with related management and marketing experiences and were mainly felt by firms introducing discontinuous novelties.

The main limitation of this paper is that the sample was retrieved from 384 employees in 100 marketing biotechnology institutions. The larger number of samples can yield better results. Next, even though the respondents’ profiles indicated a high probability of them being cognizant of their organization’s efforts in inter-firm KS, learning, creativity and innovation with three or four respondent from each organization answering all questions for such complicated issues always poses the risk of measurement bias and inaccuracy. An ideal situation for future studies would be to pool and compare multiple respondents from the same organization to obtain a more comprehensive firm-level measurement. In addition, this study only surveyed and sampled biotech marketing companies in Iran. Therefore, the model should be examined using samples from other countries because the varieties of culture could have an impact on employee apprehensions. So, future researchers can test the measurement instrument in different countries and/or conduct large multi-national comparisons.

Successful marketing strategies depend very much on an organization’s ability to implement them. This paper provides an excellent study about the future of pharmaceutical KS and shows that innovation paths are linked with local and temporary occasions. Also, the results of this study provide valuable information in formulating marketing biotechnology programs. It is essential to study both economics and innovation for students and academics. The results also suggested that policies to increase economic research will also increase innovation. They could contain the consolidation of the legal framework and institutional resources for public organizations to protect intellectual properties. In general, for successful implementation of strategies an organization has to integrate KS, processes and IT.

The paper identifies the most critical factors in the innovation process of enterprizes in marketing biotechnology institutions. The implications derived from this study can shed new light upon policy-making both at the level of governance and in the management practice in Iran’s marketing biotechnology industry. Also, the paper increases understanding of the innovation process in Iran marketing biotechnology companies. This study contributes to innovating management research by offering a set of legal and dependable operational measures. These measures can help academics in theory analysis.

This is the first attempt examining the role of the learning organization, creativity and attitude to KS as a key contingency factor in innovation in Iran marketing biotechnology firms, an issue whose understanding is still developing in the literature. The paper adds to the body of knowledge by allowing better understanding the attitude toward KS and the influence of KS, learning and creativity on innovation. Previous studies did not investigate the KS in marketing biotechnology firms deeply, but, the present paper permits a more complete view on this topic. The guidelines are provided for the top directors to promote KS and innovation according to the research results. From a managerial point of view some critical elements, which are important for the success of KS and application of these elements for progressing institutional guidelines to develop KS, are considered. Theoretical foundations can be extracted from this study, and these foundations can be implemented to investigate connection in KS elements such as feasibilities processes and institution initiative abilities. So, the results could be suitable to managers when arranging an organization and shaping its culture to improve knowledge management.

Firms frequently need to update their capabilities in changing environments but face significant barriers to accomplish this goal due to the stickiness of their routines, local search constraints, bounded rationality, uncertain imitability, and causal ambiguity. Under high levels of uncertainty, dynamic capabilities are often externally oriented, involving acquisitions and alliances. However, nonunique but competitive predictions about the behavior of these capabilities arise from the evolutionary theory. We test these competitive hypotheses analyzing portfolios of acquisitions and alliances made by pharmaceutical firms in search of portfolios of biotech capabilities. The analysis of portfolios enables us to better identify “common practices” in the pharmaceutical industry than using a transactional‐level focus. We develop implications for the evolutionary theory and for managerial practice.

Speed in new product introduction is a critical dimension of competition facing many firms in high‐tech industries. This is especially becoming more evident with shorter technological life cycles and increasing global competition. The dependent variable of interest studied is pharmaceutical firms′ ability to develop global new chemical entities (NCEs). Defines global NCEs as drugs that are approved in six major industrialized countries within four years of introduction. Using logistic regression, four variables were found to have a significant influence on firms′ ability to develop global NCEs: technological familiarity, product differentiation, competitive intensity and internal R&D skills. Discusses the managerial implications of these findings.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the dynamics of China's health biotech clusters from an interregional perspective. By treating clustering as the result of firms' localization choices, the paper examines whether and why different types of firms agglomerate in the various locations.

The paper employs a demographic approach that is inspired by the 2006 work of Romanelli and Feldman on cluster development in the USA. It categorizes China's clusters based on differences in the degree of policy support and the nature of the science base. Then, it draws a sample of 75 of China's most visible firms and analyses them in terms of entrepreneurial origin, their location and, if applicable, the location of their subsidiaries. By matching types of firms with types of clusters, the paper highlights some characteristics of China's regional development.

Studies on China's high‐tech agglomerations unanimously complain about a lack of “creative buzz” compared to the vibrant clusters of for example, the Bay Area in the USA. The analysis indicates that the lack of a creative culture is associated with the anatomy of cluster development. China's clusters grow to a significant extent by attracting enterprise subsidiaries to their sites. The authors argue that these particular cluster anatomies are founded on China's capital market. As the capital market is not prepared to provide pre‐revenue firms with sufficient funds, firms have to earn revenue quickly in order to ensure their viability. Therefore, they concentrate on building up manufacturing capacity and exploiting given technologies. The main point is that local governments as major providers of financial support are instrumental in this process. The establishment of manufacturing subsidiaries in various locations rests on the rationale of collecting funds. This leads to the conclusion that national capital markets either reinforce or inhibit clustering depending on how much it allows the mobility of financial capital. Local government funds do not travel far. This has an impact on the firms' localization decisions and their business strategies, which, in turn, affects the “culture” inside the clusters.

This argument is based on a limited number of interviews conducted by the authors or other researchers. In order to corroborate the link between the capital market and local development trajectories, more evidence needs to be collected via interview surveys and other means to extract financial information.

Unlike other research on Chinese clusters, this paper offers an interregional perspective based on a demographic approach. The argument is original in linking regional cluster dynamics with the national institutional set‐up.