Why has there been a drop in new drug approvals by the FDA? There are multiple reasons this could be all of which can be addressed by improving the way we work together in life science and healthcare.

Open innovation networks (consortia, communities, and ecosystems) are a great way to build social capital. Social capital is the sum of your relationships and the degree of trust in those relationships.

Ada Lovelace who is credited with developing the first computer program in the 1800s was the daughter of Lord Byron and therefore fond of poetry.

She saw the beauty of the analytical engine that Charles Babbage was developing which led her to think of ways it could be used beyond just making calculations.

If you are genuinely pursuing something ambitious, you will face uncertainty. Before you can accomplish anything meaningful, you must be comfortable with uncertainty.

Take innovation in the life sciences, for example….

In collaborative ventures such as consortia, alliances, communities or distributed companies it’s important to integrate your own personal or organizational needs with those of the collaborative venture.

Healthcare innovation is plagued by a particularly deep and wide ‘valley of death’. This is largely due to the need to gain the acceptance of multiple different types of stakeholders. Engaging stakeholders is important to all efforts to innovate in healthcare.

This is the first chapter from the book Assembled Chaos. Because the life sciences and healthcare innovation have become so complex it is more important than every that we have leaders in field that leverage collaboration to accelerate the pace of achievement.

It seemed to me that consortium projects were becoming more prevalent. But I was concerned that I might be suffering from a cognitive bias…

Bill Gates is credited with saying that "Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years."

This maxim rings true for consortium projects…

No one likes to have to repeat a long title of a concept, organisation or project. This is why we love acronyms. The best acronyms replace the full name and often you forget or never even know what the acronym stands for. Case in point: what does CAPTCHA stand for?

Knights who call themselves The knights who say ‘Ni’ and demand shrubbery as a sacrifice?

It is hard to imagine how the comedians of Monty Python came up with such an off the wall idea. No doubt they all possess genius level creativity…

In today's translational research landscape you have to collaborate to compete...

I was a pulmonologist and a researcher with my own lab at the University of Vermont. I met my future wife, a Belgian, and as our relationship grew we agreed to try to move to Europe if I could find work as a physician researcher. After a year or so that seemed to be the case…

What would you rather do: analyze some really interesting data that shows unexpected results, or merge 5 versions of a 115 page branched document?