title: Virtual pharmaceutical companies: collaborating flexibly in pharmaceutical development.
abstract: Research and development (R&D) collaborations represent one approach chosen by the pharmaceutical industry to tackle current challenges posed by declining internal R&D success rates and fading of the blockbuster model. In recent years, a flexible concept to collaborate in R&D has emerged: virtual pharmaceutical companies (VPCs). These differ from other R&D companies, such as biotech start-ups, collaborating with big pharmaceutical companies, because they solely comprise experienced teams of managers. VPCs have only been described anecdotally in literature. Thus, we present here the characteristics of a VPC and suggest how big pharma can leverage the concept of VPCs by introducing five possible modes of collaboration. We find that one mode, investing, is particularly promising for big pharma.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physical Chemistry (as from 1 January 2014: Department of Chemistry), Business Chemistry Group, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Simon P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Forster
authors.affiliation: LifeScan, Division of Cilag GmbH International, Johnson & Johnson, Gubelstrasse 34, 6300 Zug, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stegmaier
authors.affiliation: Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Pharmaceutical Development & Manufacturing Sciences, Johnson & Johnson, Hochstrasse 201, 8205 Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Rene
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Spycher
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physical Chemistry (as from 1 January 2014: Department of Chemistry), Business Chemistry Group, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: sseeger@pci.uzh.ch.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Seeger
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D015195:Drug Design; D004345:Drug Industry / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D017146:Models, Organizational; D012106:Research / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014584:User-Computer Interface