Page 196 - HBR's 10 Must Reads 20180 - The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review

THE EDISON OF MEDICINE

How to Innovate Like Langer

CORPORATIONS TYPICALLY SHY AWAY from early-stage research because
it is expensive, risky, and unpredictable, making it difficult for the organiza-
tion conducting it to capture the benefits. They could revitalize their research
operations by taking an alternative approach and adopting some or all of the
following principles from Langer Lab.
Pursue use-inspired research. Companies could direct their research efforts
toward concrete problems whose solutions may hold enormous long-term
payoffs in terms of the impact on humanity and the ROI. (Bob Langer esti-
mates that venture capitalists have reaped at least a 50% internal rate of
return on their investments in the companies he has helped launch.) Those
efforts should be a good fit with the company’s deep competencies.
Nurture deep scientific and engineering expertise in a handful of areas. This
could bring customers flocking for solutions to their most pressing problems.
Manage intellectual property much more aggressively. Companies could ben-
efit from seeking extremely broad, strong patents. And they could license
discoveries they don’t want to pursue themselves, both to generate income
and to ensure that someone pursues them.
Treat the central research organization as a separate entity, liberated from
the incremental demands of established business units. In addition, compa-
nies could improve their research efforts if they constrained research projects
by time, not by creativity.
Staff labs with great—not merely good—scientists and engineers, with an
emphasis on making a difference rather than on job stability. Although a

Build a Bridge over the Valley of Death
Choosing the right projects to pursue is just the first step, of course;
the path to realization can be long and treacherous. Langer has a for-
mula for getting discoveries through the valley of death separating
early-stage research and commercial development.

Focus mostly on “platform technologies”—those with multiple
applications
Many corporate and academic labs look to solve specific problems
without necessarily thinking beyond them. Langer Lab takes a
broader view. In addition to creating a wider market, this strategy

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