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Co-authored with Claudio Fassio, Pauline Mattsson and Ioana Igna.
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Abstract:
This paper examines the patterns and drivers of international collaborations between industry and academia in the pharmaceutical sector. We adopt a case-study approach focused on AstraZeneca (AZ), using a quantitative methodology to analyze the establishment of international academic collaborations. Drawing on the complete set of AZ-authored publications from 2000 to 2020, we identify instances of collaboration with international academic researchers and explore the influence of both formal mechanisms, such as institutional agreements, and informal factors, such as personal ties, in establishing new academic partnerships, specifically with researchers who had not previously coauthored with AZ scientists. Our findings indicate first of all that when the research involves a new therapeutic area for the firm this increases the number of new international academic contacts. We also find a negative but statistically insignificant relationship between institutional agreements and new international academic collaboration, suggesting that such agreements do not meaningfully increase the likelihood of initiating new partnerships. We then examine the impact of international personal ties, including prior employment of AZ researchers at foreign academic institutions. While personal ties alone are associated with a lower likelihood of new international collaborations, this effect reverses in publications that demonstrate high knowledge novelty, where the presence of international personal ties significantly enhances the probability of engaging new academic collaborators. Overall, our findings underscore the critical role of international researcher mobility between academia and industry in driving global knowledge exchange and fostering innovative scientific collaborations.
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