Research paradigms and useful inventions in medicine: Patents and licensing by teams of clinical and basic scientists in Academic Medical Centers

Abstract

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Hospitals and innovation: Introduction to the special section

“…Nevertheless, they find that contact with patients is especially beneficial for those who work within a basic science logic, where this type of contact is less frequent and is more likely to make a substantial difference. Although there are decreasing returns for both groups when it comes to patient interaction, the study to some extent supports the main message of Ali and Gittelman (2016) that there are many benefits of contact with patients for those engaged in research. Their main interpretation of the decreasing returns is that patient contact can reach an intensity that limits the individuals' time for engaging in innovation-oriented activities.…”

“…Individuals engaged both in scientific and care work used a number of strategies to decouple the two different logics rather than combine them. This demonstrates the continuous tension between the two types of logics or paradigms and thus gives strong support to the overall claim in Ali and Gittelman (2016). Lander expresses a similar scepticism towards translational research and argues that "perhaps it is time for the pendulum to swing back towards user-driven research".…”

“…The seven final articles represent different levels of analysis of hospitals and innovation. Three of them analyse micro-level processes of R&D and innovation focusing on the activities of individuals within hospitals: Ali and Gittelman (2016) look at patenting and licensing among personnel in two prominent U.S. academic medical centres over a 30-year period, Llopis and D'Este (2016) have conducted a survey among individuals in Spanish biomedical research networks to study participation in different forms of medical innovation, and Lander (2016) explores translational activities among healthcare professionals and researchers in a Canadian academic hospital setting. Two articles represent the organisational level.…”

“…The articles also represent different methodological approaches ranging from quantitative econometric analyses to case studies and use of historical data. Ali and Gittelman (2016) distinguish between basic and clinical research and propose that these two modes of research may best be conceptualised as distinct research paradigms, where clinical research in particular is found within hospitals and entails contact with afflicted patients for research personnel that are often trained in both scientific and medical work. They note that in the U.S. in the last decades, priority has been given to the basic research paradigm with its emphasis on laboratory-based fundamental investigations of cause-effect relationships, and to translational attempts involving heterogeneous teams and large-scale data.…”

“…At the level of the individual researcher we have seen that research-based medical innovation seems to benefit strongly from hospital involvement in terms of contact with patients and healthcare workers (Llopis and D'Este, 2016;Ali and Gittelman, 2016), although there may be decreasing returns to this effect (Llopis and D'Este, 2016) and several barriers when it comes to including clinicians in research projects (Lander, 2016). Such barriers are also seen at the organisational level where there are many challenges in combining commercially oriented goals of innovation with healthcare goals, despite some optimism among different types of personnel in hospitals and policy makers (Miller and French, 2016).…”