Fluctuating Open Teams (FLOT) – A New Approach to Boost Team Creativity and Innovation Potential

The pharmaceutical industry heavily relies on external sources to supplement its internal R&D activities and fill its product pipelines. Outsourcing of workpackages, in-licensing of development projects, collaborations with academic research centers or biotech companies and hiring of consultants are classic approaches towards this goal. Here we describe a new open innovation approach, termed “fluctuating open teams (FLOT)” that combines synergistically internal and external talent for a drug discovery project. The approach is compared to other open innovation options and constitutes an ideal way to boost creativity and new ideas for project teams that hit a roadblock.