Umemura, Maki  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1623-099X
2025.
Translating emergent technologies into novel therapeutics: Tracing complementarity and co-evolution in the Cambridge-Boston innovation ecosystem.
Business History Review
99
(2)
, pp. 185-209.
10.1017/S000768052510086X
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Abstract
This article traces the history of the life sciences business in the Cambridge–Boston area and explores how it became the global epicenter of the modern therapeutics industry. While business history scholarship on therapeutics is extensive, few have studied recent technological modalities—from therapeutic proteins to cell and gene therapies—or adopted a regional ecosystem perspective. Based on archival materials and oral histories, this research bridges these works and incorporates insights from the innovation ecosystems framework. It considers how dynamic interactions between an evolving network of complementary and interdependent actors, including therapeutics firms, universities, hospitals, and risk capital providers, enhanced innovative capacity. This perspective also illuminates how ecosystem strength derived from the co-evolution of actors—from universities restructuring technology transfer offices to academic scientists becoming entrepreneurs. The research further highlights the nonlinearity of innovation processes. It shows how an extraordinary interplay between structural advantage, serendipitous timing, and strategic actions cultivated an unparalleled capacity to translate emergent technologies into novel therapies.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Business (Including Economics) |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press (CUP) |
| ISSN: | 0007-6805 |
| Funders: | The Alfred D. Chandler International Visiting Scholarship, Harvard Business School, Cold Spring Harbor Research |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 30 June 2025 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 23 June 2025 |
| Last Modified: | 29 Oct 2025 10:43 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/179347 |
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