Smart platform experiment cycle (SPEC): a process to design, analyze, and validate digital platforms

Digital platform business models are disrupting traditional business processes and reveal a new way of creating value. Current validation processes for business models are designed to assess pipeline business models. They cannot grasp the logic of digital platforms, which increasingly integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) to ensure success. This study developed a new validation process for early market validation of digital platform business models by following the Design Science Research methodology. The designed process, the Smart Platform Experiment Cycle (SPEC), is created by combining the Four-Step Iterative Cycle of business experiments, the Customer Development Process, and the Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop of the Lean Startup approach and enriching it with the knowledge of digital platforms. It consists of five iterative steps showing the startup how to design their platform business model and corresponding experiments and how to run, measure, analyze, and learn from the outcomes and results. To assess its efficacy, applicability, and validity, SPEC was applied in the German startup GassiAlarm, a service marketplace business model. The application of SPEC revealed shortcomings in the pricing strategy and highlighted to what extent their current business model would be successful. SPEC reduces the risk of building a product or service the market deems redundant and gives insights into its success rate. More applications of the SPEC are needed to validate its robustness further and to extend it to other types of digital platform business models for improved generalization.

505(b) (2) - A smart pathway to differentiate from competitive, low margin environment of generics

Purpose 505(b) (2) application is one of the advantageous ways of regulatory submission. This submission approach can lead to fast-track approval for wide-ranging products, exclusively for those that exemplify a limited change from formerly approved drug. Safety and efficacy evidence in terms of non-clinical and clinical portion of the Reference Listed Drug (RLD), are trusted upon. Additionally, supplementary data essentially required to establish comparability with the RLD, are presented in the dossier. Methods This retrospective analysis is to understand the FDA's expectations and avoid errors in terms of data support approval for a new product submitted under the 505 (b) (2) route. The current script is an analysis on how to architect 505(b) (2) regulatory strategy by developing a different set of documents/information. Results The ultimate goal of this review is to allow drug developers to easily navigate through various 505 (b) (2) submissions and defense strategies for registration processes available to the new drug manufacturers and to understand an effective, safer filing route by facilitating early market launch with a prospect of lower cost. Conclusion Before considering option 505 (b) (2), general companies should have a good understanding of product’s potential productivity, scalability, patent infringement, expensive clinical studies and/or non-clinical studies to appropriately strategize scientific and commercial opportunities. This leverage will potentially quicken the development program and will definitely lower the clinical and regulatory risk of new product entrants.

Waiting for the Payday? The Market for Startups and the Timing of Entrepreneurial Exit

Most technology startups are set up for exit through acquisition by large corporations. In choosing when to sell, startups face a trade-off. Early acquisition reduces execution errors, but later acquisition both improves the likelihood of finding a better match and benefits from increased buyer competition. Startups’ exit strategies vary considerably: Some startups aim to sell early; others remain in stealth mode by developing the invention for a late sale. We develop an analytical model to study the timing of the exit strategy. We find that startups with more capable founding teams commit to a late exit, whereas those with less capable founding teams commit to an early exit. Finally, startups with founding teams of intermediate capabilities remain flexible: They seek early offers but eventually sell late. If trying the early market is so costly that startups have to make a mutually exclusive choice between an early and late sale, startups sell inefficiently late. Instead, if they can collect early offers at no cost before deciding on the timing of sale, there are too many early acquisitions. This paper was accepted by David Simchi-Levi, business strategy.

Geospatial Response for Innovation in the Wine Industry: Knowledge Creation through Institutional Mobility in China

Thus far, knowledge network research has been quantitative research, emphasizing that in limited industries, knowledge creation increasingly strengthens through geographical proximity or institutional connections. Although it has been suggested that knowledge networks should be researched using dynamic rather than static methods, the dynamic process of knowledge networks according to spatiotemporal changes has not been sufficiently researched. This paper uses the Chinese wine industry case to conduct related research. The results show that, first of all, wine-related knowledge creation activities were carried out in the big cities that formed the early market in the mid-2000s, and the geographical conditions in which the spatial scope was expanded were in the places that gradually developed over time. Second, although the spatial scope of knowledge creation activities is expanding with the active participation of private enterprise networks, private enterprises and the overall knowledge creation process are relatively isolated. Finally, in terms of the process of knowledge creation related to wine, in the development of regional linkages organizations relate to the knowledge providers who provide the required information, and have little to do with the geographically close knowledge providers.

Assessment of pesticides and ripening chemicals used in selected vegetables at different locations of Bangladesh

A survey was conducted in seven districts namely Bogura, Rajshahi, Jashore, Narsingdi, Cumilla, Jamalpur and Gazipur to assess the present status of the usage of pesticides and ripening chemical in major vegetable crops such as tomato, brinjal, country bean and bitter gourd. A total of 280 respondents having 40 respondents from each district were selected randomly for the study. The maximum number of vegetable growers belonged to the age group of 21-40, which is about 50%. About 41% and 25% of farmers accomplished their primary and secondary education in the study areas. Tomato fruit had the highest yield (27.74 tha-1) whereas the highest gross margin was attained from country bean 4,06,832 Tk.ha-1. Almost all of the vegetable growers were used synthetic pesticides (chemical group of Cypermethrin, Emamectin Benzoate, Chlorpyriphos, Carbendazim, Lambda Cyhalothrin, Mencozeb etc.) for protecting their crops from pests and most of them used own hand pump sprayer. Farmers of the study areas applied synthetic pesticides frequently with much higher dosages (8-30 times) than the recommendation. Few farmers practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for their crops. Seventy five percent farmers had protective measure during insecticide-pesticide spray and about 40% growers felt uncomfortable after hand spray to the crops. Most of the tomato growers in the study areas (Rajshahi and Jashore) were applied Plant Growth Regulator (PGR)/ripening agents mainly Ethephon @ 2500-8000ppm before 1-3 days of harvest in immature green tomato (1-4 times) for uniform color development to get higher price in the early market. Few traders (10-15%) were applied Ethephon in premature vegetables after harvest. It is strongly recommended to use IPM technology for controlling insects and pest and to create awareness regarding pesticides use practice and safety precautions. Bangladesh J. Agril. Res. 44(2): 261-279, June 2019

From Fighting Monopolies to Promoting Industry: Patent Laws and Innovation in Sweden 1819–1914

In this essay, we trace the evolution of four different patent laws in Sweden; from the first Swedish law of privilegia exclusiva in 1819 to the country becoming only the third country in the world to introduce novelty searches into the law of 1884. We discuss the ensuing contemporary public debates surrounding new proposals for legislation, as well as discernible effects of new patent laws. From being mainly a question about the “tyranny of monopolies” in the early laws to being one of “life and death for Swedish industry” in the subsequent laws, we show how changes in patent legislation resulted in three different types of innovation; technological, market and organizational. The results show that although the early laws implied severe litigation problems and considerably shorter patent terms, an early market for technology emerged as legislation had clearly established that intellectual property could be sold, bought and inherited. Concurrently the law of 1856 created a market for patenting services and patent agencies by requiring the use of Swedish agents by foreign patentees. Finally, foreign patenting increased as restrictions on patentees being non-Swedish citizens were gradually phased out.