A strategist’s guide to platform thinking
Part 2: Technology Platforms
This is the second of a five-part series on platform thinking. The series lays out a simple framework designed to help you understand the various types of platforms and how they are used. Each part covers a different aspect of the platform spectrum and can be read independently in any order. In part 2, I will focus on technology platforms.
What is a Technology Platform?
Many high-tech companies have been using technology platforms to develop a diverse range of products and gain competitive advantages. Despite their importance, technology platforms are still poorly understood. There is not even agreement among scholars as to what constitutes an appropriate definition. Much of the confusion stems from people using the same term “technology platform” to refer to different things.
According to Michael McGrath, a technology platform is “a set of initiatives organized around a macro-level functionality that helps to manage and optimize technology investments across multiple product platforms.”¹ Daniel Corin Stig defines a technology platform as “collection of elements of technological competence [that] are recognized as strategic assets and managed in a systematic way.”² Anna Gawer’s definition of technology platform consists of three distinct concepts: product platform, industry platform, and multi-sided platform.³
In high-tech industries, people are using the same term much more loosely to describe anything from an operating system to a software program to an instrument. Even a technique, a process, or a data solution is now called a technology platform. If you attend any major technical conference, you will hear the word platform being mentioned repeatedly by vendors.
It is no doubt that “technology platform” helps generate excitement. However, the continued misuse and blurred boundaries make it a useless term. In the absence of a clear definition, how do you then navigate this ambiguous world of confusion and obfuscation? David Socha described this problem in an article:
“Everything’s a platform nowadays, huh? …there is no way to immediately know what a vendor means — or what they’re avoiding telling you — when they proudly introduce their Brand X platform to you.” ⁴
In order to have meaningful discussions, we must have a clear definition first. I define a technology platform as a group of distinct technologies that serve as a foundation from which derivative products can be developed (Figure 1). A key characteristic of a technology platform is the synergy effect resulting from combining multiple technologies, i.e. the total effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.
Unlike a product platform, a technology platform cannot be modularized. In a technology platform, different technologies are brought together to form an interconnected network of knowledge, skills, and artifacts. By making this internal network of technologies accessible to all business units, a company can facilitate knowledge exchange and maximize the exploitation of technologies to develop a wide range of products for as many market segments and applications as possible.
Examples of Technology Platforms
In recent years, a number of biotech companies have leveraged technology platforms to boost up R&D productivity and expedite drug discovery and development. These platforms have already yielded new treatments such as Kymirah and Yescarta, the only two FDA-approved chimeric-antigen-receptor therapies (CAR-T) for certain aggress hematological malignancies.
An example of a technology platform is Novartis AveXis’ AVV9 gene therapy platform. This technology platform has been used to develop Zolgensma, the first gene therapy approved for treating children less than 2 years old with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA).⁵ SMA is a devastating rare childhood neurodegenerative disorder, caused by loss or dysfunction of the SMN1 gene. Zolgensma uses a non-replicating adeno-associated virus (AAV) to deliver a new, working copy of human SMN1 gene to supplement the production of the SMN protein in patients. Clinical studies have shown that AAV9 can efficiently target motor neuron cells via a single, one-time intravenous injection to increase the patient’s SMN protein to an adequate level, resulting in increased survival and improved motor function.⁶
The AVV9 gene therapy platform contains several key technologies that enable the design, engineering, production, characterization, and delivery of AVV9 vector containing a fully functional copy of almost any gene. These core technologies interact with each other and create tremendous value for AveXis by boosting R&D efficiency and effectiveness. As illustrated in Figure 2, besides Zolgensma, the same technology platform has been used to support the development of a number of gene therapy programs across multiple disease areas.
Another example is Moderna Therapeutics’ mRNA platform that is designed to accelerate the discovery and development of mRNA therapeutics. In the last two years, this technology platform has helped Moderna to bring more than ten assets into the clinic and built an exciting pipeline of multiple candidates across a range of diseases and multiple therapeutic modalities. Stephane Bancel, the CEO of Moderna, described the mRNA platform in an interview with Mckinsey:
“Simply put, our platform is a series of technologies that collectively allows us to deliver mRNA to patients to treat their disease…For example, we have developed ways to stabilize the mRNA molecule to avoid detection and degradation, we have developed vehicles to deliver the drug to tissues of interest, and we have optimized manufacturing of mRNA therapeutics at high yields. These technologies and many others make our platform the foundation of everything that we do.” ⁸
Case studies of pure technology platforms are rare in literature. If you have other good examples of technology platforms, please post them in the comments below so we can help the community to learn from each other.
References:
1. McGrath, M. (2000). Product Strategy for High Technology Companies. McGraw-Hill Education.
2. Stig, D.C. (2013). A Proposed Technology Platform Framework to Support Technology Reuse. Procedia Computer Science, 16, 918–926.
3. Gawer, A. (2014). Bridging Differing Perspectives on Technological Platforms: Toward an Integrative Framework. Research Policy, 43, 1239–1249.
4. Socha, D. (2018, August 7). Platforms, Platforms everywhere. Smart Energy International.
5. AveXis (2019, Nov 13). Discover Our Gene Therapies [Press Releases]. Retrieved from: https://www.avexis.com/our-gene-therapies.
6. Mendell, J.R., Al‑Zaidy, S., Shell, R., Arnold, W.D., Rodino‑Klapac, L.R., Prior, T.W., … Kaspar, B.K. (2017). Single-Dose Gene-Replacement Therapy for Spinal Muscular Atrophy. The New England Journal of Medicine, 377(18), 1713–1722.
7. AveXis (2019, Nov 13). Clinical Development Program for SMA [Website]. Retrieved from: https://www.avexis.com/research-and-development
8. Leclerc, O., & Smith, J. (2018). How New Biomolecular Platforms and Digital Technologies are Changing R&D. McKinsey&Company.
