The Business of Commercialization and Innovation

Abstract

We focus on the processes and strategies utilized by entrepreneurs to commercialize new technologies, thereby creating significant change and value in new, or existing markets, i.e. innovation. A cross-industry approach utilizes available theories and strategies applicable to commercialization and innovation. Our contribution is to leverage these theories, but augment their application by informed use of design thinking, and lean entrepreneurial principles to create and apply an iterative and unified framework for innovation. The coupling of strategy with informed execution is intended to provide the entrepreneur (or innovator) with an early and evolving understanding of unmet customer and user need, and how to address that need thru offerings from market entry through growth. We also utilize the “jobs to be done” framework to identify opportunity to create value for the customer/user, and for the entire ecosystem in multi-sided, networked markets. Section One covers our methodology, surveys the extant theories, and provides a framework that is applicable to commercialization and innovation in any industry. Also, we describe in Section One the innovation culture that is needed to drive and support innovation. We present our extension of the Balanced Scorecard – the Innovation Strategy Dashboard - as an appropriate methodology to measure innovation in any organization. Section Two is dedicated to applications of these principles and models to emerging opportunities in Biopharma, MedTech and Digital Medicine. Section Two includes a general healthcare industry overview highlighting its evolution and current challenges. We also include contributed articles pertinent to the production side of the healthcare industry, e. g. marketing and product positioning for biopharma, and further extend the role of design thinking to service design in healthcare. These are followed by several mini-case studies applicable to biopharma, MedTech, and digital medicine.