Pharma innovation: how evolutionary economics is shaping the future of pharma R&D

•Evolutionism provides a framework to understand business model shifts, linking challenges to future advantages.•Digital competencies, new therapeutic modalities and COVID-19 lessons will shape future R&D.•Technology-investigating and asset-integrating pharma companies as emerging business models. This paper describes the theory of evolutionary economics in the context of pharmaceutical R&D. In this context, the R&D productivity crisis acts as a key selection mechanism, and R&D, technology and industry trends provide mechanisms of variation. Drawing on today’s prevailing business model among leading pharmaceutical companies, the biotech-leveraged pharma company (BIPCO), I propose two new value creation logics: the technology-investigating pharma company (TIPCO) and the asset-integrating pharma company (AIPCO). Although some companies already share aspects of these business models, it is not yet clear, in terms of evolutionary economics, what the ultimate outcome of the evolutionary process in pharma R&D will be.