Innovation and collaboration in the United States biotechnology industry.

摘要

This project examines the relationships among R&D expenditures, innovation, collaboration, and business performance in biotechnology companies in the United States. The research focuses on firm-level factors affecting, innovation as well as firm strategies for achieving innovation. Collaboration with universities, industrial companies, and with other biotechnology firms as an innovation strategy is explored. The effects of both innovation and collaboration on the performance of firms are investigated. The nature of innovation and collaboration within and outside biotechnology agglomerations in the United States is considered in an effort to better understand the dynamics of spatially clustered innovation.; Results indicate that R&D intensive firms exhibit higher levels of earlier-stage (patent-related) innovation, while R&D spending is not specifically associated with later-stage (product or process introduction-related) innovation. High levels of later-stage innovation in firms are associated with growth in product sales, export revenues, employment, and pretax profits. Although there are significant relationships between earlier-stage innovation activity (e.g., patent applications and approvals) and the purpose of collaborations (e.g., research and product development), no direct relationship between innovation and collaboration can be found at the firm level. Both high and low-level innovators utilize collaboration as an innovation strategy. An interesting finding is that both innovation and collaboration are more prevalent in areas of industry agglomeration. The majority of innovative activity at high and low levels is found in emerging and established clusters of biotechnology firms. The highest concentrations of collaborator firms are located in emerging and established biotechnology clusters as well.; This study concludes that there are strong relationships among R&D, innovation, collaboration, and performance in the U.S. biotechnology industry in the aggregate. R&D drives innovation, and collaboration is a strategy that is often applied to advance innovation. Although innovation and collaboration are concentrated in areas of industry agglomeration, collaboration has no statistically significant relationship to innovation at the firm level.