Open source drug discovery is increasingly being sought as a solution for managing product development complexities. Three drivers encouraging the use of the open source strategy include: upstream knowledge-based complexities associated with complementary assets, technological complexities given the scale of research and interdependencies between disciplines and downstream commercialization complexities. While literature currently discusses the need for open source strategies and their outcomes, we have reached a critical stage for a framework to cohesively understand how the drivers affect the open source models chosen as well as the governance strategies to ensure a successful outcome both in terms of knowledge access and product development. In this paper, an initial framework is designed with a focus on the type of participant as impacting the motivation to participate in an open source initiative, the objective of any open source strategy as impacting the structural model adopted and the structure of knowledge produced as impacting its management. It is anticipated that this framework should then provide an opportunity to develop governance rules for open source drug discovery initiatives.
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