Ilse Scheerlinck

Who's afraid of international deregulation? Belgian credit institutions' policy preferences

The positions of Belgian credit institutions on non-tariff barriers to trade in financial services are examined. Tests are made to determine whether or not the credit institutions policy preferences are influenced by product differentiation, nationality, and competition. The observations on policy preferences are drawn from a representative survey of the industry, asking institutions to position themselves on six different issues. The model is estimated using ordered multinomial probit (for the separate issues) and ordinary least squares (for summary measures of policy preferences). The results support the standard hypotheses of the political economy of protection and anti-protection.

Strategic and Innovation Networks in the Flanders Biotechnology Industry

For organizations in high-technology industries, knowledge is a critical resource that can be accessed through inter-organizational networks. However, for industries characterized by a heterogeneous set of actors, little is known about how different networks within the industry interact. Therefore, our research question is: How similar are the strategic network and the innovation network in the biotechnology industry? To answer our research question, we study two networks of interest. First, the Board-of-Directors-network serves as a proxy for the strategic network that fosters knowledge transfer between organizations. Second, we analyze the innovation network by using the patent network that emerged from collaborative innovation activities. Subject of analysis is the Flanders biotechnology industry, which is characterized by strong performing research institutions, large firms and innovative SMEs. We use social network analysis methods to measure the similarity of both networks and to identify their key actors. We find that a connection between two organizations in the strategic network increases the probability of forming a new connection between the same organizations in the innovation network, or vice versa. This shows that collaborations between two organizations on one network level can lead to an interlocking of the organizations at other network levels. Our results also suggest that few companies establish and maintain a strong position in the biotechnology innovation network. This network is dominated by academic institutions, which are the key producers of scientific knowledge. Interestingly, the BoD-network has a more balanced composition and power structure and knowledge on strategic issues is transferred across a wide range of industrial actors. We also highlight the strong position of spin-off companies in the BoD-network and the absence of large firms in both networks. Our findings call for more research on the causal mechanisms of network formation and on the relationship between multiple networks within one industry.

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.

Knowledge Bases and Collaboration Propensity during Clinical Drug Development

We apply the theory of the knowledge-based view on the firm to investigate why pharmaceutical companies enter into inter-organizational collaborations during clinical drug development. A firm’s propensity to collaborate is influenced by the firm’s knowledge base, i.e. its stock of knowledge resources. We consider two knowledge bases that exist within pharmaceutical firms: early-stage R&D and late-stage R&D knowledge bases. As pharmaceutical companies possess and utilize both knowledge bases during drug development, traditional patent-based measures present too homogeneous a view on the firms knowledge base. We complement traditional measures with a measure that captures late-stage R&D knowledge base and answer the following research question: What is the impact of the concentration of the early-stage R&D and late-stage R&D knowledge bases on the propensity of pharmaceutical companies to engage in collaborative clinical drug development? We find that pharmaceutical companies with a concentrated clinical d...

Clinical Development Of Biologic Therapeutics: The Influence Of Collaboration On Success

New therapeutics are developed by a heterogeneous set of actors including universities, innovative SMEs and large pharmaceutical concerns. In this paper, we distinguish between private and public organizations and we address the following research question: Does inter-organizational collaboration between private and/or public organizations during the clinical development of novel biologic therapeutics influence clinical trial success? We use a multilevel binomial logistic regression and control for clinical trial phase, product class, therapeutic indication and trial start year. No effect of collaborative clinical development on clinical trial success was found, regardless of whether collaborations took place within or across sectors. The absence of such a relationship indicates that the current portfolio approach to innovation in the drug development industry does not translate in improved outcomes. Collaborative R&D projects are vehicles that should be used to combine capabilities and to promote inter-o...