India's Decade of Collaboration

On recent visits to India, we have found that "innovation" is the buzzword on everybody's lips. Indian CEOs and policy-makers inject this word into practically every sentence they utter. President Pratibha Patil has even declared 2010-2020 as India's "Decade of Innovation." But to ensure that India realizes its true innovation potential and achieves inclusive and sustainable growth, we suggest it may be more appropriate to make this decade the Indian "Decade of Collaboration."

As we enter the 21st century, the closed and insular innovation models of the 20th century are giving way to open and globally-networked approaches fit for a knowledge economy in which creativity and R&D talent are globally dispersed. Biocon is one Indian company that is adapting well to this new global reality by embracing a polycentric innovation model. For instance, in October 2010, Biocon struck a $350-million marketing alliance with Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, to commercialize four of Biocon's insulin biosimilar products in non-overlapping markets globally. Biocon also sources drug molecules from other partners, especially from developing countries, such as the Cuba-based Center of Molecular Immunology (CMI).