Sanofi’s Open Innovation strategy

Abstract

This article addresses a strategic management’s main topic : open innovation strategies. These practices are considered here as a specific manifestation of the firm’s cognitive and conative capability to successfully enter into business relationships with other actors of its environment: the firm’s relational capabilities. The later are a way to complete the organization’s resource base in order to cope with environmental changes. First, we specifically study the pharmaceutical sector’s case. We review the constraints influencing Big Pharmas and biotechnology dedicated firms’ R&D processes. We show that these constraints stimulated the development of open innovation strategies among the sector. Secondly, we deeply study the Sanofi’s case. We will see that the group’s recent strategic developments are clearly aimed at implementing an open innovation strategy.