Thomas Klueter

Linking Technologies to Applications – Insights from Online Markets for Technology

Abstract An important precondition for resource redeployment is that firms are aware of the commercial applications for which their resources can be used. We take an inventing-firm perspective and ask: how many new commercial applications will a firm associate with an existing technological invention? We note that both technological and organizational characteristics determine the number of distinct applications firms consider feasible for a given technological invention. In particular, we suggest that inherently fungible technologies, that is, technologies that have a broad impact on other technological fields (highly general technologies), will be associated with a larger set of commercial applications. We also suggest that linking applications to an inherently general technology can be challenging when the technology is already embedded in organizational (commercial) routines. Proprietary data from an online marketplace allow us to investigate the applications firms consider feasible for their technological inventions. In line with extant work, a firm assigns a greater number of applications to more general technologies. As expected, however, this relationship is shaped by how the technology is embedded within the organization. Our results have implications for redeployment as firms may face challenges in the initial step of redeployment when fungible resources need to be linked to emerging market opportunities.

Challenges in the gene therapy commercial ecosystem

813 gene therapy, as is evident by a more stable patenting trend. The stark difference between the mAb and gene therapy ecosystems is also illustrated by the top patenting entities from 2003 to 2014 (Table 1). Whereas in gene therapy the majority of top patentees are research organizations, in mAbs the majority are biotech and pharmaceutical firms. The persistence of publicly funded research was instrumental in resolving many of the scientific challenges associated with gene therapy. Today there is renewed optimism about the promise of gene therapy to treat major diseases such as hemophilia and cancer. Gene therapy–based biotech firms raised more than

Decoding the Adaptability–Rigidity Puzzle: Evidence from Pharmaceutical Incumbents’ Pursuit of Gene Therapy and Monoclonal Antibodies

1 billion through initial public offerings in 2015 and 2016. To explore the recent resurgence in gene therapy, we examined all clinical trials during the period 2012–2016 for new therapeutics (Table 2). Because mAbs have had a relatively smooth trajectory of technological progress, there are more trials in mAbs than in gene therapy, and many of these trials are in advanced stages of clinical development. As expected from Challenges in the gene therapy commercial ecosystem