Collaboration - a competitor's tool: The story of Centocor, an entrepreneurial biotechnology company

Biotechnology companies have relied on alliances for survival and growth since their inception. This history of Centocor illustrates the pivotal role collaborations played for pioneers in the industry. Five years after its founding Centocor had become a competitive and profitable diagnostics company based on partnerships with research institutes and larger health care companies. In 1992, however, Centocor faced collapse, brought on by a departure from collaboration and going it alone in the development and marketing of the company's first therapeutic. What saved the company and enabled it to prosper in therapeutics was a reversion to the old strategy of collaboration.alliances, biotechnology, technology transfer, pharmaceutical, diagnostics,