Analysis of Open Innovation Efforts alongside the biopharmaceutical industry’s value chain in Iran

The market of biopharmaceuticals in the world is growing rapidly and in our country the share of these drugs is increasing. Research, development, production and sale of these drugs have high risk and cost and require a long time. Hence, global companies are turning to technological and innovative collaborations. In Iran, however, the issue of cooperation between biopharmaceutical companies has not been addressed.

In order to identify the ways in which the actors of this industry cooperate along the value chain, the present study has tried to draw the actors in each of the links of the chain by studying two cases in Sinagen and Ronak Daroo companies. The present study is an applied type and interpretive paradigm in a way that using a multi-case study strategy, attempts have been made to identify ways of technological cooperation between different actors along the value chain. The interviews with each of the interviewees consisted of 13 main questions and were in the form of a semi-structured interview.

The results of this study show that although good cooperation has been formed between the actors of this industry for the production of medicine. But these collaborations have been more about developing the market or producing biosimilars than on developing technology and upgrading research capabilities and developing new drugs. Also, despite the formation of few technological collaborations between companies in the industry, the lack of specialized companies such as clinical trial companies and small biotechnology companies, legal shortcomings such as the weakness of the commercial law for mergers and acquisitions and the weakness of use Export development tools are among the most important problems facing the promotion of technological cooperation between companies in this industry.

Iranian biopharmaceutical companies generally acquire their production knowledge through reverse engineering and for the production of biosimilars and perform the distribution and after-sales service themselves.