My research seeks to understand, through the lens of strategy and innovation, why a wide range of diseases still lack effective treatments. Motivated by this societal need, I examine the innovation process in life science firms: what enables it, what hinders it, and why it sometimes fails. Although innovation is a well-studied concept, the mechanisms through which novel ideas are sparked, developed, and ultimately transformed into marketable products and services remain only partially theorized and empirically mapped. My research advances our understanding of this important phenomenon by examining two interrelated factors that shape innovation: (1) knowledge recombination, that is the process by which innovators draw on discrete knowledge elements and reassemble them into novel configurations; and (2) intellectual property (IP) rights, which govern the use and accessibility of those knowledge elements while also serving as incentives for their initial creation. The puzzle arising from firms' desire to appropriate value from their innovations, through protective mechanisms such as IP, while simultaneously relying on access to knowledge elements often protected by the IP of others lies at the center of my research agenda. I am particularly interested in how different types of firms, ranging from entrepreneurial specialist ventures to large diversified incumbents, navigate this challenge and respond to it.
