MIT Sloan Management Review Article on The Incumbent's Deep Tech Strategy Playbook

Deep tech — the innovative use of emerging physical technologies enabled by digital technologies to solve large-scale problems — has the potential to create transformative growth opportunities for businesses. By tapping into these advanced technologies, leaders are better positioned to address large-scale problems and reshape entire markets. Consider the impact of synthetic biology; by 2030, this rapidly advancing field could affect industries that account for as much as 30% of global gross domestic product.

In the pharmaceutical industry, the disruptive power of deep tech is evident in the development of mRNA vaccines. Through decades of government-funded research, academic ingenuity, and backing from venture capitalists and accelerators, mRNA technology gradually emerged as a groundbreaking innovation. However, it took medical urgency and the strategic involvement and operational support of established companies such as Pfizer to usher in an mRNA-based vaccine at scale and enable its commercial success. Partnering in 2018 with BioNTech, a spinoff of Mainz University that had been founded a decade earlier, Pfizer played a critical role in developing the record-profit-making COVID-19 vaccine.

About the Author

François Candelon is a senior partner and managing director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the global director of the BCG Henderson Institute, where his research focuses on the impact of technologies on business and society. Vinit Patel is a project leader at BCG and a former ambassador at the BCG Henderson Institute. Max Männig is a project leader at BCG and an ambassador at the BCG Henderson Institute. John Paschkewitz is a partner and associate director at BCG and a core member of BCG X’s Deep Tech team.

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