Enabling research and development innovation in the life sciences: A case study

Many industries face challenges in driving an innovation strategy that sustains value growth and aligns with the company’s social responsibility. Bayer is in a unique position as a global diversified life science company, with a mission to alleviate hunger and improve health. We propose that research-intensive firms such as Bayer must consider an R&D innovation strategy in addition to a typical product innovation strategy to ensure successful short- and long-term R&D-enabled value creation. To this end, we introduce an R&D technology–product–market innovation framework and apply this framework to a case study involving the Life Science Collaboration (LSC) program, Bayer’s internal multidisciplinary R&D seed fund. In the light of the innovation framework we propose, we show that the LSC’s community-driven decision-making enables broad strategic alignment with business needs while maintaining space for out-of-the-box ideas.