By Ralph
With openness comes innovation. This is core to our value system at CoLab. It’s why we work with a host of partners across our project portfolio and generally why we choose to collaborate over compete at every opportunity. While this philosophy is clearly a shot across the bow of the old consumer capitalist paradigm believing that success only comes at the expense of others; it is not without supporters from some of the old economic guard.
A NY Times article recently noted that pharmaceutical companies are beginning to see the value of an open source, collaborative approach to developing drugs.
They can do science “open lab”-style, working in teams with academic and government scientists and other drug companies to share what they learn and to bring fresh scientific ideas and technological tools to bear. Relaxing the traditional insistence on secrecy allows collaboration, and with it, innovation.
Think that the open-source collaborative economy will never take root as the dominant business paradigm?
Well it is already starting to…
GlaxoSmithKline opened its campus at Tres Cantos, Spain, to outside academic, government and biotech scientists in order to collaborate on finding antibiotics for neglected infectious diseases
Let’s hope that this trend continues!
As always, if you have an interesting collaborative opportunity, be in touch.