Resultados de la Investigación

Lastly, the other firms under study, Green Cross (GC) and JW, have shown notable differences in their way of maintaining R&D organisations for upstream research, which has been one of the fundamental obstacles to new-drug development. While other firms have managed upstream research organisation under their direct command as central R&D centres, GC and JW have tried to deepen the upstream research through a dual approach by maintaining both the central R&D centres and independent organisations devoted to upstream research. These two examples support the effectiveness of autonomous R&D organisation in sustaining exploratory learning, as the literature argues.

GC established the Mogam Biotechnology Research Institute (MBRI), Korea’s first privately funded non-profit research institute, in 1984, and JW set up a drug discovery

oriented JV, C&C, with a Japanese company (Chugai Pharmaceuticals) in 1992.¹⁸⁸ Until now, they have concentrated on upstream and mid- and long-term research, escaping their mother companies’ direct control and market performance. Interestingly, the present pipeline products of these two companies are mostly involved in the first, or best, class of drugs that aim to penetrate the global market, and many of their pipelines have been first established based on drug identification by external R&D organisations.¹⁸⁹ The establishment of MBRI as an independent research institute was the decision of the owner after the commercial success of the in-house developed hepatitis B vaccine (Hepavox - the third hepatitis B vaccine developed worldwide). MBRI has operated on royalties from their research performance that have been mainly transferred to their parent company, GC. The institute also holds about 10% of the shares of the holding company of GC. Through establishing an independent R&D entity, on the one hand they have come to provide researchers with a more autonomous research environment. On the other hand, GC has been able to secure their explorative research activities, freed from its own market performance. That is, GC has tended to save their profits from Hepavox to secure the continuation of upstream research that has been interrupted by the external economic situation and GC’s annual market performance:

The former chairman, my late father, aimed at setting up a reservoir of technological sources both for society and for us (GC). In reality, MBRI has played as a dam for GC in the last three decades. When we (GC) have made a surplus in market profit, we’ve stocked this in Mogam and thus they have been able to continue and expand their research. On the contrary, Mogam has played as a stronghold of R&D activities when we (GC) have been stuck in difficulties in market performance or other factors (Interview 40 (K-Pharma)).

Overall, GC’s present R&D organisation is comprised of the directly-commanded R&D centre of GC and the indirectly-controlled MBRI, through an arm’s length transaction.

The latter concentrates on mid- and long-term upstream research, and the former focuses on short- and mid-term downstream R&D. In short, almost half of GC’s publications were conducted by MBRI. As a result, their long-term research has been secured through MBRI.

Although the case of JW is not exactly the same as GC, it also shows the possibility of the successful management of explorative research. Through the successful foundation

188 The institute has been registered as a collaborating research centre of WTO in vaccines and diagnostic agents since 1989.

189 Example: the first in class NCE candidates – GCC1290K by GC and CWP231A by JW.

of C&C with Chugai, JW was able to accumulate upstream research-related technologies and knowledge, such as screening technologies, CADD (Computer Aided Drug Design), ADME and efficacy test, IPR management, and project and pipeline management, including clinical development. C&C has provided eight drug candidates for JW and Chugai in the last 20 years.¹⁹⁰

7.3 Summary

This chapter has addressed the restructuring process of organisational structure to deal with increasing new-drug R&D activities. Internal R&D organisations and, at times, arm’s length R&D units were analysed.

First, the analysis showed that organisational structure of R&D centres is a somewhat later response to the changing nature of technological learning, from exploitation to exploration. The function-based organisational structure disturbed the interactive learning between R&D teams and did not adequately reflect market changes. Most case firms have belatedly transformed their function-based R&D centres to project- (product) based R&D organisations, adding matrix forms. This was a response to the continuous failures in linking their exploratory learning with their commercial outcomes.

Second, the analysis presented the effectiveness of arm’s length R&D organisation for continuing long-term upstream research. GC and JW have operated entities independent of the explorative upstream research organisation, in parallel with their central R&D centres. In doing so, they have, to some extent, been able to secure autonomous and mid- and long-term research environments.

The following chapter answers the research question of the factors that influenced the enhancement of an exploratory mode of technological learning, taking into account both the macro-level policy perspective (Chapter 5) and firms’ organisational perspective (Chapters 6 and 7).

190 Furthermore, in 2000, JW launched a new R&D centre (Theriac Pharmaceutical) in Seattle, USA, that concentrates on more upstream oriented research (target identification and validation, and drug discovery), based on the newly emerging proteomics and chemical genomics. At the same time, they are in charge of the clinical development of their first-in-class pipeline product in the US (CWP231A, the first inhibitor of Wnt signalling pathway, for treating acute myeloid leukaemia, now in clinical trial 1).