Long-Term Collaboration Network Based on ClinicalTrials.gov Database in the Pharmaceutical Industry

Entry Into New Therapeutic Areas: The Effect of Alliance on Clinical Trials

BACKGROUND

Entry into a new therapeutic area, that is, one in which a pharmaceutical firm lacks experience, is a considerable challenge for firms that need to overcome scientific and technological barriers. To address this issue, the present study aims to explore the potentiality of alliances in an empirical manner.

METHODS

From the clinical trials sponsored by 20 major pharmaceutical firms during 2008-2016 listed at ClinicalTrials.gov (n = 14,941 clinical trials), cases of entering a new therapeutic area for a pharmaceutical firm were extracted (n = 73), followed by statistical analyses to evaluate the effect of alliances in this regard.

RESULTS

We found that the average number of participating organizations in the cases of entering a new therapeutic area was significantly larger than that in the cases of entering an area in which firms had experience (P < .01), suggesting that alliance has a positive effect on new therapeutic entry for these pharmaceutical firms. Second, we found that the cases of partnering with nonindustrial or nongovernmental organizations (ie, universities, research institutes, hospitals, funding agencies, and others; n = 32 of the 73) were significantly associated with these new entry trials (adjusted odds ratio = 1.1, P < .05). Furthermore, we identified that 10 of the 32 clinical trials were associated with rare diseases, which is an overrepresentation compared to the occurrence in the universe (1015 of the 14,941; P < 10^-5).

CONCLUSIONS

These findings strongly suggest the importance of alliances with diversified partners in new therapeutic entry and also provide a basis for further detailed investigation of key success factors for pharmaceutical firms.

Measuring the Efficiency of U.S. Pharmaceutical Companies Based on Open Innovation Types

The pharmaceutical industry, where research and development (R&D) efficiency is central to company survival, has recently faced significant challenges. To increase efficiency, companies must implement strategies such as open innovation (OI), wherein they sell their intellectual property, maximize their use of external resources, adjust their structures, and implement new business models. In this study, we divided 701 U.S. pharmaceutical companies according to their OI strategies to measure and compare their R&D efficiencies between 2001 and 2016. We analyzed the deal data of companies by first dividing them into four groups (inside-out, outside-in, coupled, and closed) to calculate R&D efficiency using stochastic and meta-frontier analyses. In the first group analysis, the coupled group shows high technical efficiency, but in an overall comparison, the inside-out group achieves the highest efficiency values. These values increased between 2005 and 2010, when the R&D crisis in the industry was great at its highest. We thus identified the characteristics of each group based on our results, and presented extensive analyses using a time-series comparison and enterprise-level analysis. We claim that pharmaceutical companies can still cope with the current R&D crisis by implementing different OI strategies.