Public–private collaborations in drug development: boosting innovation or alleviating risk?

ABSTRACT

Consistent with popular belief among certain academics, practitioners, and policy makers, we hypothesize that collaboration between private and public organizations promotes success. We test this hypothesis for data on clinical trial success. Contrary to this popular belief, our results do not support the beneficial effect of within- and cross-sector collaborations. In contrast, we find that trials from single private companies are four times more likely to be successful than are trials in which public and private organizations collaborate. Hence, our results indicate that companies engage with public partners to mitigate development risks, not to exchange knowledge or technologies with them.

KEYWORDS:

• Public–private collaboration
• cross-sector collaboration
• drug development
• trial success

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas Crispeels

Thomas Crispeels is an Assistant Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel at the Department of Business Technology and Operations (BUTO). His research is situated in the field of Technology & Innovation, with a special focus on technology transfer and the role of universities in high technology industries such as the biotechnology and photonics industries. Thomas teaches several courses on technology entrepreneurship and the business economics of high-technology industries to business and engineering students.

Jurgen Willems

Jurgen Willems is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Hamburg. He researches citizen participation and performance management in public and nonprofit organizations. He obtained his PhD at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and from August 2005 till December 2008, he worked as a researcher at the Vlerick Business School in the Operations and Technology Management Centre. Furthermore, he has been a Visiting Scholar at the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, University of Missouri in Kansas City. His work has been published in Public Management Review, Public Money and Management, and Public Performance and Management Review.

Ilse Scheerlinck

Ilse Scheerlinck is associate professor at Vesalius College and at the Department of Business Technology and Operations of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She studies the relationship between public policy and corporate interest groups. Special focus lies on the role of life sciences in shaping European decision-making, a subject she also covers in her economics and management courses through case-based lectures.