Ideology and institutions in science-based innovation work: The case of biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry

The proposed research project aim at examining how changed market conditions and new scientific and technological changes are affecting the professional ideologies of co-workers in pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms.

Historically, pharmaceutical companies have been driven by scientific ideologies and practico-theoretical interests. Today, after the advent of what has been called the biomedicalization of medicine and its accompanying commodification of advanced pharmaceutical know-how, co-workers in these organizations are facing a more diverse set of objectives and needs to address a broader set of ethical issues and concerns.

Drawing on a body of literature in sociology, innovation management, and studies of biomedicalization and pharmaceutical industry, the project aims at contributing to both formal organization theory through examining how professional ideologies are contingent on various social, economic and cultural conditions, and to a more detailed understanding of how the dynamic field of pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology is organized and managed.

Using a combination of qualitative research methods including interviewing, participative observations, and ethnographic approaches, the study will contribute with detailed and situated learning regarding how professional communities of practice perceive the conditions of their work.

Final report

Alexander Styhre, Business administration, School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg

2008

Project purpose and digressions from initial project goals

The research projects aimed at examining professional ideologies and institutional beliefs in the life science sector. The study were planned to examine how the life sciences expertise is translated into new products and services, i.e., are commercialized. The study was been able to fulfill this generic goal but has also addressed a number of additional research questions pertaining to the local settings being studied. The research project has collected empirical material in five different professional settings: (1) the pharmaceutical industry, (2) the biotechnology industry, (3) research university departments in bioengineering and medicine (obesitas research and cardiology), (4) biomaterials industry, and (5) reproductive medicine and assisted fertilization clinics. All these different professional domains, being in various ways interrelated and mutually constitutive e the field of the biopharmaceutical industry and university-based life science research, demonstrate their own idiosyncrasies and historical conditions. At the same time, there are significant similarities in terms of the advancement of new technologies, new research concepts, and new know-how.

Three most significant results

During the research project, we have been able to collect a substantial amount of first-hand data that have been reported in research monographs and journal articles. Reviewing the data "cross-sectorially," the three most important findings can be articulated accordingly:

1. Substantial and at times underrated difficulties in translating life science know-how into commodities and therapies
The popular press and parts of the scholarly literature advance the life science as the "next big thing" in the Western economies. The growth of science-based and technological professional work is also underlining the shift in focus from a "manufacturing economy" to the "science-based innovation economy" wherein the life sciences is supposed to play a role similar to that of the automotive industry in the post-World War II period and the computer industry in the last few decades, i.e., as the dominant and paradigmatic industry of the period. The difficulties for the pharmaceutical industry to produce new and innovative drugs, a standing concern for close to two decades, and the relatively marginal contributions of new therapies from biotechnology suggests that the translating of advanced life science know-how into commodities and therapies is not a minor step. Representatives of the life sciences acknowledge the substantial growth of know-how the last two decades but the increased understanding of the human genome, the coding of proteins, and the interplay between the genotype and the phenotype has opened up for more alternative research methods rather than provided answers to questions. In a very fundamental sense of the term, the life sciences are now working in the "post-genomic era" and have in many cases abandoned the idea that the human genome is the "book of life" prescribing how to develop new therapies. Expressed differently, the research project provide empirical data that suggests that simplistic beliefs regarding the translation of life science know-how into therapies needs to be reviewed critically. This does not suggest, however, that the two last decades of intense life science research have been fruitless; on the contrary, in the post-genomic era there are many research findings contributing to the understanding of biological systems at the molecular, cellular, and organ levels. In addition, many new research methodologies and technologies (e.g., stem cell systems and protein crystallography) have been developed, opening up for new research domains.

2. The introduction of new concepts in the post-genomic era
In the face of the challenges to produce new therapies, the life sciences, both academic and commercial, have developed new research concepts and methodologies. For instance, in the pharmaceutical industry, small molecules (under the weight of around 500 Daltons) has been the traditional domain of expertise. As neurodegenerate diseases and other more complex (in comparsion to viral or infectious diseases) are being targeted, the traditional research design have been complemented by both the use of biologics, larger molecules, and antibodies, demanding new research activities. In addition, post-genomic technologies such as biocomputation, systems biology, and computation chemistry, using mathematical modeling, analysis, and computation a research method being used to identify connections between e.g., the genome, proteins, and medical disorders. In addition, in the biotechnology industry, emerging stem cell research projects has called for new research methodologies wherein traditional in vivo and in vitro technologies (the analysis of integrated organisms and reduced biological systems such as cells, respectively) and biocomputation/systems biology have been combined and developed. In general, there is a discussion both in pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology industry that the traditional linear research methodology connecting molecule-target-disease, highly successful in e.g., cardiovascular and gastrointestinal new drug development but less so in e.g., research in the domains of the Central Nervous System (CNS) is about to be displaced by new analytical models. For instance, in research in CNS to produce therapies for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's diseases, the compound develop not just only one single target but multiple targets in the CNS. Such research projects thus displaces linear and unidirectional models of the biological organisms and institute more complex models accommodating the emergent properties of biological systems. In summary then, in the post-genomic era, the life sciences are moving in many directions to enact new research models that are capable of producing a new set of therapies.

3. Strong professional ideologies and institutional logics
The research project have collected data in five specific but interrelated fields of the life sciences and in all domains there are strong professional ideologies and norms regarding the contributions and possibilities of the life sciences. As opposed to the more flamboyant proponents of the life sciences (e.g., science journalists and popular science writers), professional life science researchers are not underrating the difficulties facing the life sciences in terms of translating theoretical models and propositions into safe and effective therapies. On the other hand, these challenges are, in their view, not insurmountable but may eventually be handled. Professional life science researchers in both industry and academy are confident in their social and professional roles and appreciate the work they are jointly conducting. On the other hand, in the metropolitan Gothenburg region, and in Sweden more generally, here is a relatively marginal political interest for supporting the life science industry, partially because it employs relatively few people and because other industries still play a more prominent role in terms of both proportion of GDP and employment.

New research questions generated

The research project started with the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and academic research universities as being the "core" or the life sciences to explore the possibilities for life sciences to take a lead in the contemporary economy. In the latter half of the research work, biomaterials and reproductive medicine, two other branches of the life sciences, one more oriented towards the engineering and design sciences, and one oriented towards the domain of medicine and health care but nevertheless closely bound up with the life sciences has been explored.

New research questions have been formulated in all these five domains including (1) how will the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries handle the transition into post-genomic research agenda?, (2) how are "the margins of the life sciences" being commercialized (e.g., biomaterials, assisted fertilization clinics, cosmetic surgery, etc.) drawing on the advancement of the life sciences? (3) how do governmental an regional agencies aimed at promoting the commercialization of the life sciences influence the industry: do "start-up offices" and science parks make a substantial difference? What are the role of venture capital in the commercializing the life sciences?

Two most important publications

The three research volumes being published with Palgrave Macmillan and Routledge (Forthcoming) are providing an integrated and theoretically embedded reporting of the empirical material have the greatest chances of reaching outside of the field of organization studies:

Styhre, A. & Sundgren, M. (2011) Venturing into the bioeconomy: Professional Ideologies, Identity and Innovation, Palgrave Macmillan (ISBN 978-0230238367
Styhre, A., (2012), Organizations and the Bioeconomy: The Management and Commodification of the Life Sciences, New York and London: Routledge.
Styhre, A. and Arman, R. (2013), Reproductive Medicine and the Life Sciences in the Contemporary Economy, Forthcoming, Aldershot: Gower.