[DIYbio] The Role of Hackers in the Open Innovation Process of the Pharmaceutical Industry

Dear Biohacking Community,

some of you I already had the pleasure to meet in person, some of you I just know from silently following the posts here, some of you I just know from their great work out there. So now it is time to give something back to the community: My thesis on biohacking with the title

"The role of hackers in the open innovations process of the pharmaceutical industry"

It was part of my business-chemistry studies at the University of Münster in Germany and for this purpose I spent 4 months researching at the Waag Society with great people like Pieter, Roland and Fede. Also I interviewed a few well-known biohackers on their experiences on collaboration with the pharmaceutical industry. Next to the hacker perspective I spoke with some interesting people from the industry who either already work together with hackers or looking forward to it.

The research design was explorative one as the topic at least from the management perspective is to my knowledge underexamined. I used following methods to obtain my data:

• observation of different community events

• questionnaire at two different biohacking beginner events

• 7 interviews

During my research in tried to answer following research questions:

• What are the profiles and the motivations of the people engaging in local biohacking communities?

• What are values and assets of interest for the pharmaceutical industry in local biohacking communities?

• How can the pharmaceutical industry engage and interact with local biohacking communities in order to internalize values and assets?

Later during my research I especially put focus on two existing collaboration between hackerspaces and biotechnology or pharmaceutical company:

• La Paillasse and Roche France on Epidemium

• Biologigaragen and Novozymes on Baessy

Who could be interested in this thesis? Well, everyone who wants to learn to cope with this "clash of cultures" and want to initiate collaborations with either their company or their community. But be careful as it supposedly is a "travel you might get addicted to, so that is a lesson learnt."

In my personal opinion we need to capture the best of both worlds to solve the big problems we are facing. On the side there are the hacker communities which I admire due to their creativity, the non-conformist thinking and the maker-spirit. On the other side the pharmaceutical companies is rich in talented mind with expertise and lots of experiences in their matters. Also they can get sh** done, if they want to. Both sides should be unified in their passion and curiosity on science. Collaboration in formal or informal ways can be ways to create a sphere and network in which this can be happen. Take the antibiotic dilemma for example. We should be brothers in arms and not separately tinkering. For this to happen I think both parties have to loose a bit of their arrogance and start working to together. I hope I delivered some kind of blue print how this can be done or at least give some impulse for further thinking and research.

For questions and comments I am free to either be approached here or via mail.

Cheers

Chris