Whom to Choose as License Partner? The Interplay between Technology Cooperation & Market Competition

This paper investigates the matching of firms on the market for technology. The paper forwards two dimensions along which license formation occurs: technology and product-market. Both sides of the market search for a partner representing potential for high technology synergies to maximize licensing benefits and obviate issues related to technology transfer and knowledge recombination. At the same time, firms wish to select a partner operating in a different product market to minimize competitive downside issues and to access other product markets, skills and resources. We contend interdependence between technology and market forces: if partners are market distant, the likelihood of technology license contractual partnership decreases with partners’ technological distance. Using data on the formation of license partnerships in the global biopharmaceutical industry over the period 1994-2004 the paper lends empirical support for the theoretical predictions.