Game Models of the Defection Dilemma in Biopharmaceutical Discovery Research

Recent trends in biopharmaceutical discovery research toward the systems biology paradigm have created a need for interdisciplinary teams with a wide range of skills. Success, especially economic success, will depend on the ability of team members to learn from each other. The mechanisms used for knowledge transfer and the motives of team members during knowledge production are crucial to this sharing of knowledge. Moreover, the timing of appropriation may determine whether downstream developments can be pursued. In this article we use game models to represent and analyze interactions between partners in collaborative alliances. Our contention is that a researcher's "freedom to operate" downstream is determined by cooperate-versus-defect decisions upstream, as discovery knowledge is being produced and subsequently disseminated. These decisions therefore determine whether researchers can equitably pursue downstream opportunities for medical application development.