Chapter 2

HARIS SUYANDA
11553102873
Sources
of
Innovation
CHAPTER 2

SOURCE OF INNOVATION
Gavriel Iddan was an electro-optical engineer at Israel’s Rafael
Armament Development Authority, the Israeli authority for development
of weapons and military technology. One of Iddan’s projects was to
develop the “eye” of a guided missile, which leads the missile to its
target.
In 1981, Iddan traveled to Boston on sabbatical to work for a
company that produced X-ray tubes and ultrasonic probes. While there,
he befriended a gastroenterologist (a physician who focuses on digestive
diseases) named Eitan Scapa.
Getting an Inside Look: Given Imaging’s Camera Pilla1

Furthermore, the nature of the small intestine makes it a difficult
place to diagnose and treat such disorders. The small intestine (or “small
bowel”) is about 5 to 6 meters long in a typical person and is full of
twists and turns. X-rays do not enable the physician to view the lining of
the intestine, and endoscopes (small cameras attached to long, thin,
flexible poles) can reach only the first third of the small intestine and can
be quite uncomfortable for the patient.
In the United States alone, approximately 19 million people suffer
from disorders in the small intestine (including bleeding, Crohn’s disease,
celiac disease, chronic diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, and small
bowel cancer)

During long conversations in which each would discuss his
respective field, Scapa taught Iddan about the technologies used to
view the interior lining of the digestive system. Scapa pointed out that the
existing technologies had a number of significant limitations, particularly
with respect to viewing the small intestine.b The small intestine is the
locale of a number of serious disorders.
In the United States alone, approximately 19 million people suffer
from disorders in the small intestine (including bleeding, Crohn’s disease,
celiac disease, chronic diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, and small
bowel cancer)

Furthermore, the nature of the small intestine makes it a difficult place to
diagnose and treat such disorders. The small intestine (or “small bowel”)
is about 5 to 6 meters long in a typical person and is full of twists and
turns. X-rays do not enable the physician to view the lining of the
intestine, and endoscopes (small cameras attached to long, thin, flexible
poles) can reach only the first third of the small intestine and can be quite
uncomfortable for the patient. The remaining option, surgery, is very
invasive and can be impractical if the physician does not know which
part of the small intestine is affected.

Colonoscopy was the largest category of the endoscopy market—in the
United States alone, 14 million patients undergo colonoscopy a year, and
it was believed that even more people would undergo screening if
screening were more comfortable. Given thus had the potential of
growing market. As of 2015, the U.S. approval for the Pillcam COLON
was limited to “patients who had undergone incomplete colonoscopies,”
citing some results that indicated that the pictures from the camera pill
were less clear than traditional colonoscopy
A View to the Future . . .1

Many in the industry, however, suspected that the camera pill would
eventually supplant all traditional colonoscopy. In February of 2014,
Dublin-based medical device maker Covidien had acquired Given
Imaging for roughly $860 millioni, and then in early 2015, medical
equipment giant Medtronic acquired Covidien for $49.9 billion.j Given
would now have access to much greater capital resources and larger (and
more geographically distributed) salesforces—if it could continue to get
its Pillcams approved for more applications and in more countries, it was
positioned to transform the market for gastrointestinal endoscopy

Innovation can arise from many different sources. It can originate with
individuals, as in the familiar image of the lone inventor or users who
design solutions for their own needs. Innovation can also come from the
research efforts of universities, government laboratories and incubators,
or private nonprofit organizations. One primary engine of innovation is
firms. Firms are well suited to innovation activities because they
typically have greater resources than individuals and a management
system to marshal those resources toward a collective purpose. Firms
also face strong incentives to develop differentiating new products and
services, which may give them an advantage over nonprofit or
government-funded entities.

Innovation begins with the generation of new ideas. The ability to
generate new and useful ideas is termed creativity. Creativity is defined
as the ability to produce work that is useful and novel. Novel work must
be different from work that has been previously produced and surprising
in that it is not simply the next logical step in a series
of known solutions.2 The degree to which a product is novel is a function
both of how different it is from prior work (e.g., a minor deviation versus
a major leap) and of the audience’s prior experiences.3 A product could
be novel to the person who made it, but known to most everyone else
CREATIVITY1

As the previous sections indicate, there is a growing recognition of the
importance of collaborative research and development networks for
successful innovation.40 Such collaborations include (but are not limited
to) joint ventures, licensing and secondsourcing agreements, research
associations, government-sponsored joint research programs, value-
added networks for technical and scientific interchange, and informal
networks.41 Collaborative research is especially important in high-
technology sectors, where it is unlikely that a single individual or
organization will possess all of the resources and capabilities necessary to
develop and implement a significant innovation.
INNOVATION IN COLLABORATIVE NETWORKS1

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