New Players in Life Sciences Innovation, The: Best Practices in R&D from Around the World, The (FT Press Operations Management) [ハードカバー]

The premise of the book is very interesting - how will R&D in a critical domain evolve based on the key emerging trends and what are the best practices in the new landscape. Unfortunately, the book fails to live up to the promise.

The first three chapters provide a very laborious, repetitive analysis of the emerging countries in life sciences. Based on various government reports and other observations, the author convinces the reader that the "usual suspects" of emerging markets (Brazil, India, China...) are involved in Life Sciences as well. Other than highlighting the role of Singapore as a key player - these three chapters does nothing to advance a reader's understanding of the changing landscape.

While the author outlines three key emerging trends - clinical trials, drug discovery and formation of technology clusters, they lack a discussion on how the author identified these three areas to focus on. The dependence on a PriceWaterCooper analysis on the future of discovery process provides a very unoriginal and incomplete framing for the discussion that follows.

The chapter on Contract Research organizations (CROs) clearly makes the (obvious) point that outsourcing is increasing in clinical trials. Depending mostly on a single source - an analysis by Kearney et al., the chapter doesn't provide any new information other than a superficial summary and a very short section on the "future" using a very typical consultant chart from PwC - no original analysis. The same approach (and hence the problems) are reflected in the next chapter on technology clusters. The concluding chapters discuss approaches of Lilly, Merck and Pfizer - mostly relying on their respective press releases - without providing a critical analysis.

Overall, the book, with its dependence on a few published reports by consulting firms, press releases and general observations, fail to do any justice to the claim of identifying "best practices in R&D". With the shoddy editing and a lack of focus or well-developed themes, the book comes across as a collection of loosely-arranged press releases. While providing a factual look at the extent of outsourcing in the life sciences industry, the book does not advance a reader's understanding of how the industry may evolve - let alone understand the best practices.

This is first rate, within the limits of its aims. Those limits are that it is research-centered, focused on a specific industry and set of ecosystems, and descriptive rather than normative. It deserves a broader audience, which it is unlikely to get, primarily because of the absurdity of academic book publishing, where the very opposite of incentive pricing applies; the smaller the market, the higher the price, which reduces sales to the Average Reader and stiffs students in the case of textbooks and gouges college libraries for monographs and specialist works. At $49 hardback and $39 on Kindle, this won't be a best seller.

It merits a broad readership because it captures not just the dynamics of life sciences but of general shifts in global business in many other sectors. The analysis is well-grounded, full of data and examples that are instructive and embedded in a clear structure and set of organizing themes. It is very rich in illustrations from sectors, companies and countries. Overall, it is just what you wanted in your professors in the classroom: shrewd realism and practical knowledge of the field reinforced by scholarly depth, information that makes it all come alive, and lucid explanation and exegesis.

I found it a very welcome resource for my own work. I need to add a truth in reviewing caveat here. I am a Research Fellow in my semi-retired dotage at the very same institution as the author, American University's Kogod School of Business. He and I have not met and I am unfamiliar with his other work. I write similar books, most of them more aimed at a general business audience but that address many of the themes he brings out: the shifting nature of the R&D-value link in innovation, the dynamics of the globalization of talent as well as market shifts, the differing paths that India, China, Korea and others are taking and the transformation of innovation processes, financial capital structures and collaboration that is radically shifting life science innovation from its reliance on asset-heavy, scale-based inhouse resource management. I can't recall a more useful and stimulating book that has helped me in my thinking and writing than this one. It provides a wide variety of examples from familiar companies such as Pfizer, Novartis and Dr. Reddy and ones that are not part of the general business press or classroom coverage, including Korea and China science parks, Singapore's BioPolis and Latin America's InTrials. IT is particularly insightful in its review of clinical trials and in its coverage of such innovations in collaboration as Eli Lilly's InnovCenter and FIPNet.

It's a book about the globalization of innovation built on life sciences as its organizing topic, rather than being a specialist work on life sciences that focuses on innovation. From my own perspective, there are a few areas that I feel could have been explored in more depth to add to its general applicability. It's a little light on Latin America and underestimates in my view the specific ways information technology is providing an entirely new coordination base beyond the obvious Internet reach. It doesn't address supply chain integration and the financial shifts in capital investment and operating expenditures. There are some business issues that might have been brought out more, including the emergence of new forms of intermediary, including Pharmacy Benefit Management services and the nature of and shifts in the sales process, which are driving much of the competitive dynamics of India's huge and growing market.

It's a fair expectation that any academic research work is likely to be dreadfully written, with the stylistic elegance of a life insurance policy. This book is plain, lucid and free of cant and jargon.

All in all, this is an excellent work. I recommend it for anyone in the business and economic development fields looking to build a fresh view of innovation, for its general ideas and illustrations. For professors at the graduate school level, this would make a fine textbook for a course on globalization, innovation or corporate strategy.

After manufacturing, software and IT enabled services, now it is the time for the Life Science Industry to experience the effects of Globalization. Tomasz Mrockzkowski shows how R&D in life sciences is shifting from the Western countries to new global powerhouses like China and India. He compares the emerging innovation systems and national policies of China, India, Singapore, South Korea, and Brazil and evaluates their strengths and weaknesses in Pharmaceuticals, R&D, clinical trials and infrastructure creation. The critical study of the developments in differenct countries across the world gives not only very useful statistics, but also provides the framework for companies as well as entrepreneurs to take advantage of the global shifts in growth.

Strategies of the largest multinational pharmaceutical companies in their R&D collaborations with the developing world are explored in depth, which reveals how jobs as well as knowledge are now moving out from US and Europe to China and India. Leading companies of China and India are also covered along with a summary of their growth path. Inspite of being much smaller than the large multinationals, these companies are able to compete not only in their home turf but also in other countries through M&As and collaborations. But the developing countries are still well behind in basic research - how fast will they catch up? Which type of national policies will work? Will the investments in bioparks, technology zones and special economic zones create clusters that can accelerate innovation? Will their educational institutions be able to develop sufficient trained manpower? These are some of the interesting questions that the author tries to answer.

The book provides considerable amount of facts and is a good tool to get a global picture of the life sciences industry and the current trends. The major drawback is the lack of flow in connecting the different themes in the book and the poor organization of content which hampers the reading experience.