Reorientation of Nutraceuticals and Pharmaceuticals Applications in an Open Innovation Model

Industry convergence, defined as “the process of blurring boundaries between two or more disparate industries by combining their scientific knowledge, technology, and markets,” is a phenomenon that has had a profound effect on different industries and, consequently, received significant interest among researchers and practitioners over past decades. In general, when industry convergence occurs, companies operating in each sector need knowledge and technologies that are not present within their expertise. Consequently, firms face challenges related to the acquisition of the required unfamiliar knowledge and technologies outside their boundaries. These challenges stress the need for a more open approach to innovation. The use of networked organizational arrangements to conduct exchanges is one of the most distinctive features of high-tech research-intensive industries. Advances in biotechnology and genomics research have enabled a generic technology platform that has fueled a more “open” approach to innovation and learning. This relies on collaborations between networked partners and allows for the convergence and reorientation of traditional sectors. This chapter studies, on the one hand, the extent to which the food and pharmaceutical industries show tendencies to converge, and on the other hand, how open innovation may be adopted in order to help their convergence. Specifically, the chapter investigates the role of open innovation within this context and shows how industry convergence is fast becoming a dominant logic in the emerging nutraceuticals industry.