Knowledge Bases and Collaboration Propensity during Clinical Development

We investigate why pharmaceutical companies enter into collaborations during clinical drug development. A firm's knowledge base, i.e. its stock of knowledge resources, influences its propensity to collaborate. Pharmaceutical companies utilize two knowledge bases during the R&D process: the early-stage R&D and late-stage R&D knowledge bases. As a result, traditional patent-based measures present too homogeneous a view on the firm by focusing on early-stage R&D. We complement these measures with a measure for the late-stage R&D knowledge base. The following research question is addressed: What is the impact of the concentration of the earlystage R&D and late-stage R&D knowledge bases on the propensity of pharmaceutical companies to engage in collaborative clinical drug development? We find that pharmaceutical companies with a concentrated late-stage R&D knowledge base collaborate less during clinical drug development. Contrary to previous research, we do not find that a highly concentrated early-stage R&D knowledge base leads to less collaboration.