Transforming academic knowledge for drug innovation: a practice-based view of objects, entrepreneurs, and institutions

Academic-industry partnerships in biopharmaceuticals have been commonly arranged through firms licensing academic patents and universities receiving research grants and royalties. However, this arrangement does not accommodate the complexity in science. The research question of this dissertation is what kinds of social arrangements transform academic knowledge for complex innovation. I conducted interviews and field observations with scientists involved in drug discovery research. I developed a grounded theory on three dimensions of knowledge that characterize the boundaries for science-based complex innovation. One dimension is the materiality of complex knowledge, which emphasizes on the situated and contextualized learning about how drugs work in the realities of human biology. Another is the epistemic dimension, which highlights the ever-emergent nature of knowledge that motivates scientists to keep asking questions and drawing on rich scientific theories. The third is the activity dimension that directs a purpose of multidisciplinary collaboration among scientists. These dimensions reveal how scientists in the basic and clinical research communities go about creating and commercializing research for innovation. I further examined how the current academic-industry arrangements bridge the two forms of boundaries, and concluded that social arrangements have to support scientists participating in situated learning, raising questions, and engaging in activities to iteratively validate emergent findings. The contribution of this dissertation is threefold. My theory develops a deeper understanding of the content and substance of knowledge for biopharmaceutical innovation. My in-depth examination of how academic discoveries mediate practices among scientists suggests that these dimensions can create a common ground for scientists, business managers, and investors to collaborate. I also suggest the kinds of knowledge transformation that academic-industry partnerships need to accommodate to promote more effective collaboration.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Yun S