Open source innovation starts to make inroads in Pharma

Published: 29-Nov-2010

Funding and regulatory issues still a concern, says Frost & Sullivan


Open source innovation, a concept that has been used in the IT sector for more than three decades, is now successfully being applied in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to promote innovation in the drug discovery process according to a new report by Frost & Sullivan.

Analysis by the research organisation, entitled Open Source Innovation in the Context of Pharma and Biotech, finds that while pharmaceutical companies have started to recognise the power of open source innovation, the industry will have to push harder for this concept to be used more widely.

Open source innovation is a way of collaborating in the r&d of a product. It enables information sharing across companies, institutions, areas of expertise and platforms of research.

‘The key benefits of open source innovation in pharma include creativity arising from bringing together the best minds to solve a problem, and speed due to a simpler project management framework compared with internal pharma projects,’ said Frost & Sullivan’s senior research analyst Rasika Ramachandran. ‘Risk sharing, greater impact due to pre-competitive nature of these projects, flexibility to discontinue non-profitable projects and finally, affordability are among its other advantages.’

Some of the main challenges of open source innovation include funding, as well as coordination and leadership issues. Regulatory issues, providing incentives and availability of talent are other areas of concern.

Theoretically, open source committees can apply to the government for some part of the funding, says Frost & Sullivan. However, if a country is staking a large percentage of its GDP on funding open source, there will need to be a more inclusive, reliable decision process.

Governments could possibly fund open source projects through universities, which could function as the coordinating arm. The data gathered through this project could be then stored in a repository and the information accessed through a membership fee, pay-per-use or pay-per-type mechanism.

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