跨界协作：默克创新在中国 | Cross-sector Synergy: China Innovation at Merck

来源：中国美国商会（AmCham China）| Jordan Papolos  

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孙正洁女士是默克中国创新中心董事总经理与默克中国战略及转型副总裁。两年前她在默克波士顿办公室担任全球肿瘤事业部总监，那时她得到了一个回中国建立公司战略及转型职能的机会。在她的领导下，这个新部门在公司受到前所未有的广泛关注。在回国之前，孙正洁女士还曾担任默克美国生殖事业部市场工作和神经事业部业务运营工作；此前，她是中国生物制药高级领导团队的成员，为生物制药业务的全球扩张做出了贡献。

论及中国企业创新的最佳实践，默克中国的孙正洁女士谈到了全面的内部创新机制、利用当地创业生态系统以及与政府合作推进核心业务并进一步发展中国的关键产业。

默克拥有350多年的历史，是世界上最领先的科技公司之一，在全球蓬勃发展，专注于生命科学、医药健康和高性能材料三大核心业务。对于默克而言，取得长期成功的关键是采取全面的创新方法和全球战略，关注全球的企业和消费者，解决他们的关键需求。

近几十年来，这家行业巨头在中国发现了其创新努力和全球战略的最大交汇点——默克不仅在中国的销售和消费领域有着极强的渗透力，而且在开发当地技术、创业和学术研究的能力方面也极其突出，从而使其成功地部署技术进步和企业创新战略。在过去的两年间，默克中国创新中心董事总经理与默克中国战略及转型副总裁孙正洁女士，一直引领着默克在中国创新发展。在她的领导下，默克改变了在中国的战略，调整其业务部门和资源，以寻求跨部门业务线之间的协同效应，履行推动人类进步的使命。

“在默克，我们将自己定位为一家充满活力的科技公司，为此，创新是动力。我们是一家建立在好奇心之上的公司，致力于人类进步。在许多方面，我们强调企业、责任、技术和创新的重要性，这使我们350年以来蓬勃发展，”孙正洁女士说到，“无论是推动目前的业务发展，还是为未来发展开发新的技术或解决方案，创新都将引导我们的努力方向。”

默克模式

默克长期成功的根源在于其对创新的热情以及在科学、技术和研发方面的深厚根基，这三个关键领域都是默克的专长。在医药健康方面，默克设计并开发药物和设备，努力为患者提供持续的服务，重点关注过敏、心血管疾病、肿瘤、辅助生殖、糖尿病和甲状腺疾病。在生命科学方面，从药物的研发生产到疾病诊断，默克的产品助力科学界，帮助他们解决问题。在高性能材料方面，默克的专长包括创新的液晶和显示器用OLED材料、用于生产集成电路或效果颜料（用于涂料和彩妆）的材料以及用于能源解决方案的功能材料。

孙正洁女士描述道，“作为一家科技公司，我们希望在各个领域和业务方面利用我们的技术和研发来造福客户。例如，在医药健康部门，我们将重点放在神经学、肿瘤学和免疫肿瘤学上。”她继续解释道，“这三个领域是我们的主要关注点，在研发中的产品达80%。在生命科学方面，我们的重心之一是推动新技术在新疗法上的应用，如基因编辑技术。在高性能材料方面，我们是解决方案的领导者——我们非常重视为半导体和显示器开发新一代材料。我们能看到这些部门之间有很大的协同作用。”

创新在中国

默克成为行业领袖的核心是同时致力于自上而下和自下而上的创新思维。在中国，这种创新方式以多种方式表现出来，并渗透到中国的学术、创业和技术领域中。

孙正洁女士解释到，“对内，公司没有把创新局限在我们的研发部门和专门的创新人员中，而是利用整个默克员工队伍——挖掘员工的创新思维。因此，我们让员工参与多个创意激发项目，通过全面的自下而上的方式实现创新。”在中国，默克的创新战略包括创建各种平台，为各部门拥有好想法并想要将自己的想法转化为可行业务的员工提供机会。

为了实现这一目标，默克已将这些各种各样的（创意）行动实行制度化，以发掘员工队伍的力量，提升公司整体创新意识。“通过像‘Innospire’这类的项目，”孙正洁女士说到，“我们鼓励员工提出并进一步发展他们对新产品或商业机会的想法。而且，通过创新智库，我们创建了专门的团队，在创新中心用三个月来分析未来的趋势和技术。”

同时，默克认识到，对创新重要性有着深刻理解的领导层为公司其他部门定下了基调，并为公司未来的发展指明了方向。“自下而上的策略非常重要，但自上而下也同样重要，”孙正洁女士说到，“我们知道，创新是一种短期内不会立即显示结果的东西，因此不会直接影响盈亏。不幸的是，对许多企业来说，这意味着不会有足够多的努力，或必要的努力，用于创新并获取收益。”

正如孙正洁女士所描述的，创新仍然是一项长期的企业战略，而不仅仅是一次性努力的成果，这通常是一项艰巨的任务。默克的解决方案是将领导力作为超越短期底线，并了解未来综合收益的核心。孙正洁解释道，“创新中心和战略及转型部门背后的驱动力来自公司高层——包括公司CEO和其他高管，他们推动创新，并在整个组织和公司层面上努力，而不是将创新划分成任何独立部门或独立商业组织。”

孙正洁女士强调，为了实现创新，公司高层需要相信，相较于现有的业务目标，未来技术更需要被关注，这些技术可以帮助公司在领域内取得成功。“公司高层和员工都必须有创新意识，并真正参与创新过程和创意孵化，”她说到，“在组织的每一个阶层上你都需要真正想把自己和他人的想法转化为有意义的商业机会的人。”

融入本土生态体系

公司内部创新战略的成熟之后，将工作重点放在外部创新上变得至关重要——寻找与当地企业家、初创企业和学术界的合作机会，实现共赢。为此，默克非常重视外部创新，如今，公司拥有一系列合作伙伴关系，致力于开发未来技术，推动人类进步。“当我们进入到更大的创新和技术生态系统时，我们意识到许多关键的利益相关者都扮演着重要的角色，如初创企业、风险投资者、孵化器和加速器，以及学术界和政府——我们积极与所有人合作，”孙正洁女士说到。

特别是在中国，有一个充满活力的创业环境，每年都有数千家初创企业成立，他们都在致力于为消费者和企业需求开发解决方案。通常对于这些初创企业来说，为了能在竞争的海洋中蓬勃发展，来自像默克这种跨国公司的帮助是完美的解决方案。

“对于初创企业，我们有一个加速器项目，在该项目中，我们面向的是处于种子轮至A轮阶段的初创企业，，他们活跃于医药健康、生命科学、高性能材料以及其他交叉领域，如人工智能医疗解决方案、液体活检、生物传感和界面。”孙正洁女士继续说到，“这是一个为期三个月的项目，我们提供资金，更重要的是，我们为加速器项目中来自中国和全球的初创企业提供默克内部资源。无论这些资源是商业还是研究方面的专业知识，这些初创公司都有机会与我们公司、我们的业务部门、我们的专家以及其他伙伴（如风险投资部）合作。有时我们甚至可以将初创企业与我们的供应商或分销商联系起来。通过这个项目，这些初创企业能够从默克在中国的全部业务中获益。”

为了进一步利用中国充满活力的创业生态系统，默克除了与其他领先的跨国公司建立合作关系外，还寻求当地加速器和孵化器的帮助。“谈到孵化器与加速器，”孙正洁女士说到，“我们已经与张江Vπ合作，帮我们找到一些推荐的初创企业。我们还有微软加速器等合作伙伴，共同促进企业创新。”

默克在中国所寻求的最丰富的创新来源之一是国内大量的研究机构和丰硕的学术领域。“说到大学，我们倾向于与大学的技术转让办公室合作，帮助我们寻找那些有兴趣与默克合作的人，”孙正洁女士说到，“技术转让办公室的优势在于他们可以与不同的院系进行合作。由于默克的业务非常广泛，我们不仅关注医学院或偏向生物化学的院系，还关注学术界的不同领域。技术转让办公室能够帮忙实现这一目标。此外，我们也常常直接与特定的教授或他们的实验室合作。”

中国政府是默克创新战略的另一个关键参与者。“我们在创新工作中采取了许多不同的方法——我们希望与中国市场的所有主要参与者合作，帮助初创企业开发有助于行业升级的技术，帮助中国经济转型为创新驱动型经济，并帮助政府制定创业和创新议程，”孙正洁女士说到。

默克公司以各种方式支持中国政府，包括组织创新社区活动，确定和选择有发展前景的地方创新企业和技术。“对于默克与政府合作，我们通过不同的方式提供支持，”孙正洁说到，“我们曾是深圳国际创业创新大赛抗癌技术专业赛的协办单位，从九个国际市场招揽了有好想法的初创企业。在比赛中，我们协助对进入中国市场的初创企业进行评估和筛选。在这类竞争中，默克提供肿瘤方面的专业知识，以造福中国医疗行业。”

中国创新与全球创新

两年前，默克才在硅谷建立了第一个总部外的创新中心，其全球创新战略和全球足迹正在迅速扩张。现在，仅仅一年之后，默克中国创新中心就在孙正洁女士的领导下在全国范围内率先发展，并为即将到来的全速发展做好准备。这一快速扩张证明了默克认识到，思想、文化和地点的多样性对其自身的企业创新战略和技术进步具有巨大的益处。

 “默克之所以不仅在总部设立一个创新中心，是因为我们看到了不同环境下的机遇，”孙正洁女士说到，“无论是硅谷、以色列还是中国，所有地区在提供机会和资源方面都具有不同的优势。”通过在世界各地建立创新中心，默克正以一种国际的心态来实现创新，这种心态使公司能够以更多样性的努力、倡议和活动开展工作。

 “我们中国创新中心和硅谷创新中心的区别，”孙正洁女士解释道，“在于我们不仅着眼于全球领先的新技术，还着眼于支持中国的业务增长。”她介绍了当下默克公司如何融入中国的商业环境，将创新中心的发展作为其整体中国战略的一个组成部分。“如果你关注我们如何影响中国业务的发展，我们让中国员工参与进来，并积极了解和确定公司为不同的业务提供什么，”她说到，“这是我们与硅谷创新中心不同的做法。”

展望未来

对于默克的中国业务来说，解决中国特定问题的创新机会范围是巨大的、动态的、技术上复杂的。例如，在甲状腺、糖尿病等疾病的诊断中，中国的诊断率与其他发达国家相比极低。“如果我们能利用人工智能等技术帮助提高诊断率，”孙正洁女士说到，“这会对我们的医药健康业务有很大帮助。如果我们能够使用尖端技术帮助这些患者进行正确诊断，那么他们就能获得解决方案，从而得到正确的治疗。当然，这对业务发展也有帮助。”

在中国，虽然部分医疗研究和高质量医疗处于国际水平，但并非所有医院都是如此。“目前，医疗资源分布并不平衡。你可以看到资源主要集中在大医院。但是，如果你看看中国的人口分布，90%的医院与大医院都不在同一水平。社区医院和大多数病人就诊的小医院与大医院根本不在同一水平。因此，如果我们能够通过在大医院工作来开发先进的工具或带有人工智能的工具，然后通过这些工具在小医院使用，就能真正帮助那些无法获得优质医疗服务的患者，”孙正洁女士说到。

因此，默克公司正在关注几个创新领域，如液体活检、生物传感和人工智能医疗解决方案，这些领域是他们为了提高中国医疗体系的整体水平而打算实现的跨行业创新类型的典范。孙正洁女士描述到，“对于人工智能支持的医药健康解决方案，我们已经确定了人工智能如何对几个领域产生重大影响，例如诊断率以及如何提高诊断的整体水平。另一个领域是药物开发，以及人工智能如何帮助临床开发，使治疗更具成本效益、更准确和更广泛应用。”

得益于对当地和全球市场的深入了解，以及满足患者需求的能力，默克中国正于一系列快速发展的不同领域中进行探索和拓展。在打造全球足迹和利用全球员工的创新思维方面，孙正洁女士和默克中国正在帮助这家全球公司建立一个具有350年历史的产品组合，其中包括解决方案和数字技术，这些解决方案和数字技术将能够为中国人和全世界提供更好的体验，更好的成果，更好的生活。

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Sophie Sun is the Managing Director for Merck China’s Innovation Hub and Vice President of Strategy and Transformation. She returned to China two years ago after working as Director, Global Commercial Oncology in Merck’s Boston offices when she was offered the opportunity to develop the Strategy and Transformation function in China. Under her guidance, this function is the first of its kind with a nation wide focus. Before returning to China, Sun also worked with Merck’s US organization on the fertility market and neurology business operations; before that, she was a member of the Senior Leadership team for biopharma in China, contributing to the global expansion of the biopharma business.

Merck China’s Sophie Sun discusses best practices in corporate innovation in China through comprehensive internal innovation efforts, leveraging of local startup ecosystems, and collaboration with government bodies to advance core businesses and to further develop key industries in China.

With a corporate history spanning 350 years, Merck is one of the world’s largest science and technology companies, thriving across the globe with a focus on three core businesses – life sciences, healthcare, and performance materials. For Merck, the key to such long-term success has been a holistic and comprehensive approach to innovation and global strategy, addressing the crucial needs and concerns of businesses and consumers around the world.

In recent decades, the industry giant has found the greatest intersection of its innovation efforts and global strategy in China – a business landscape where Merck has deep penetration in not only sales and consumption, but in the ability to tap into the local technological, entrepreneurial, and academic ecosystems, allowing for the successful advancement of their technologies and corporate innovation strategy. For the past two years, Sophie Sun, Managing Director at Merck China’s Innovation Hub and Vice President for Strategy and Transformation, has been spearheading Merck’s efforts in China. Under Sophie’s leadership, Merck has revolutionized their China strategy, aligning their business units and resources in search of the synergies between their cross-sector business lines and their mission of advancing human progress.

“At Merck, we position ourselves as a vibrant science and technology company, and for that, innovation is the driving force. We are a company built on curiosity – made up of curious minds that are dedicated to human progress. In many ways, what has allowed us to thrive over these 350 years has been our emphasis on the importance of entrepreneurship, responsibility, technology, and innovation,” says Sun. “Whether it’s driving the current business or developing some new technology or solutions for future growth, innovation guides us in our efforts.”

The Merck Model

The source of Merck’s long-time success is intrinsically intertwined with its penchant for innovation and deep roots in science, technology, and research and development, which the company expertly applies in each of the three key areas. In healthcare, Merck designs and develops medicines and devices that strive to provide ongoing care for patients, focusing on allergies, cardiovascular, oncology, fertility, diabetes, and thyroid diseases. In life sciences, Merck’s products are empowering the science community and solving their problems with solutions from drug discovery and development, to manufacturing and diagnostics. And in performance materials, Merck’s expertise includes groundbreaking liquid crystals and OLED materials for displays, materials for the production of integrated circuits or effect pigments for coatings and color cosmetics, and functional materials for energy solutions.

Sun describes that, “As a science and technology company, we believe that for different areas and different businesses, we want to leverage our technology and our R&D to benefit our customers. For example, if you look at the healthcare industry, we put a lot of emphasis on neurology, oncology, and immuno-oncology.” She goes on to explain, “Those three areas are our primary focus and account for 80% of our pipeline. For our life sciences business, one of our focuses is on driving new technology in novel therapies, such as gene-editing. In performance materials, we are the leader in solutions – putting a great deal of emphasis on developing next-generation materials for semiconductors and displays. We see a great deal of synergy in these sectors.”

Innovation in China

At the heart of Merck’s industry leadership is a simultaneous commitment to both a top-down and bottom-up innovation mindset. In China, this approach to innovation manifests itself in a variety of ways and permeates out to China’s academic, startup, and technological ecosystems.

According to Sun, “Internally, we believe that the company needs to go beyond our R&D departments and our dedicated innovators, and instead we need to leverage the entire Merck workforce – we need to tap into the employee’s innovative mind. As such, we engage employees in several ideation programs to achieve a holistic and bottom-up approach towards innovation.” In China, a great deal of Merck’s innovation strategy involves creating platforms in which they can look to employees from all departments who have good ideas and who have the drive to transform their ideas into viable businesses.

To accomplish this goal, Merck has institutionalized a variety of initiatives to tap into their workforce and elevate the innovative minds of the whole organization. “Through programs like Innospire,” says Sun, “we encourage employees to submit and further develop their ideas for new products or business opportunities. And, through our Innovation Think Tank, we create dedicated teams to analyze future trends and technologies through a three-month stay at the Innovation Center.”

Simultaneously, Merck realizes that leadership with an acute understanding of the importance of innovation sets the tone for the rest of the company and informs the direction an organization takes into the future. “A bottom-up approach is very important, but at the same time a top-down approach is just as important,” says Sun. “We know that innovation is something that doesn’t immediately show results over the short term, and as such does not directly impact P&L. Unfortunately, in many businesses, this reality means that not enough effort, or the necessary effort, is put forth to see the benefit of innovation efforts materialize.”

As Sun describes, ensuring innovation remains a long-term corporate strategy and not simply a menagerie of one-off efforts is often a difficult task. The solution at Merck is to look to leadership as an anchor that can see beyond the short-term bottom line and understand the compounding benefits in the future. Sophie explains that, “The driving force behind the Innovation Center and also the S&T function comes from the very top – from the CEO and the other executives – to push innovation and to establish these efforts at an organizational and company-wide level, rather than sequester innovation off into any single sector or any single commercial organization.”

Sun advises that in order to make innovation happen, top leadership needs to believe that there must be a focus on more than just existing business goals, and instead attention be given to future technologies that can help the company succeed down the line. “It is imperative that those at the top, as well as the employees, have an innovation mindset and are truly engaged in the ideation process and the incubation of ideas,” says Sun. “You need people at every level of the organization who really want to transfer their and others’ ideas into meaningful business opportunities.”

Integrating into Local Ecosystems

As corporate internal innovation strategies mature, subsequently refocusing efforts on external innovation becomes paramount – looking to local entrepreneurs, startups, and academia for partnership opportunities that enhance the success of both parties. To this end, Merck places a great emphasis on external innovation and, today, has a litany of partnerships working to develop the technologies of tomorrow to advance human progress. “When we tap into the greater innovation and technological ecosystem, we recognize there are many key stakeholders that all play important roles, such as startups, venture capitalists, incubators, and accelerators, as well as academia and the government – we actively engage with all of them,” says Sun.

In China especially, there is a vibrant startup ecosystem in which thousands of startups are created each year, all looking to develop solutions for consumer and corporate needs. Oftentimes, for these startups to thrive amidst the ocean of competition, a helping hand from multinationals such as Merck is the perfect solution.

“For startups, we have an Accelerator program in which we target seed stage to series-A stage startups who are active in the field of healthcare, life sciences, performance materials and also some areas like AI-enabled healthcare solutions, liquid biopsy, biosensing, and interfaces. At these intersections, we can build between one of our sectors,” says Sun, going on to state, “This is a three-month program in which we provide funding, and more importantly, we provide the startups from China and beyond with access to Merck internal resources. Whether the resources are commercial or research expertise, these startups get the opportunity to work with us, with our business units, with our experts, and also with other networks, such as venture capital groups. We can sometimes even connect the startups with our suppliers or our distributors. Through this program, the startups get to benefit from the entirety of Merck’s operations in China.”

Further leveraging China’s vibrant startup ecosystem, Merck enlists help from local accelerators and incubators in addition to partnerships with other leading MNCs. “When it comes to incubators or accelerators,” says Sun, “we have worked with Zhangjiang Vi Pai to aid us in finding some recommended startups. As well, we have partners such as Microsoft Accelerator in which we jointly promote corporate innovation amongst the community.”

One of the richest wellsprings of innovation Merck looks to tap into in China is the copious amounts of research institutes and prolific academic arenas found across the nation. “When it comes to universities, we tend work with the technology transfer office of universities to help us to look for those interested in working with Merck,” says Sun. “The advantage of the technology transfer office is that they can engage with an assortment of different schools. As Merck has quite a wide business, we not only look at the medical schools or biochemistry- focused departments, we look at a variety of different areas of academia. The technology office can help facilitate that. As well, we often work directly with specific professors or their labs.”

The Chinese government is yet another key player in Merck’s strategy for innovation. “We take a lot of different approaches in our innovation efforts – we want to work with all the major players in China to help startups develop technologies that can help the industry upgrade, to help the Chinese economy transform into an innovation-driven economy, and to help the government in their agenda of entrepreneurship and innovation,” says Sun.

Merck supports the Chinese government in an assortment of ways, including organizing community events and identifying and selecting promising local innovations and technologies. “For Merck’s government collaboration, we support them through different ways,” says Sun. “We were the co-organizer of the Anti-Cancer Competition of the Shenzhen International Entrepreneurship Innovation Competition, which recruited startups with good ideas from nine international markets. During the competition, we supported in the evaluation and selection of the startups that would be chosen to enter the China market. In such competitions, Merck provides expertise in oncology to benefit the Chinese healthcare sector.”

Innovating in China Vs. Innovating Globally

With their first non-headquarters innovation hub established in Silicon Valley just two years ago, Merck’s global innovation strategy and global footprint is expanding rapidly. Now, only a year later, the China Innovation Hub is gearing up to soon be in full swing, spearheading strategy for the entire country with Sun at the helm. This rapid expansion is a testament to Merck’s acknowledgement that a diversity of thoughts, cultures, and locations holds a massive benefit to their own corporate innovation strategy and the advancement of their technologies.

 “The reason that Merck wanted to have not only the one innovation center at headquarters is that we see the opportunities with different ecosystems,” says Sun, “Whether it’s Silicon Valley or Israel or China, all locations have different advantages regarding the opportunities and resources they have to offer.” By establishing innovation hubs across the world, Merck is approaching innovation with a global mindset that enables the company to work with a greater diversity of efforts, initiatives, and activities.

 “The difference between our China Innovation Hub and that of Silicon Valley,” Sun explains, “is that we not only look at new technologies with a global priority but also with an eye to support China’s business growth.” Sun describes how, today, Merck has integrated into the Chinese business environment, with the innovation hub development as an integral part of their overall China strategy. “If you look at how we wanted to leverage our China operations, we have to engage the Chinese employees and actively understand and pinpoint what the company offers with different businesses,” she says. “That’s something we do differently from the Silicon Valley hub.”

Eyes on Tomorrow

For Merck’s China business, the scope of opportunity for innovation addressing China-specific issues is vast, dynamic, and technologically intricate. For example, in diagnoses of ailments such as hyperthyroidism and diabetes, the diagnoses rates in China are extremely low relative to other developed countries. “If we can leverage technologies like AI to help to increase the diagnosis rate,” says Sun, “this could greatly help our healthcare business. If we can help those patients in their ability to be properly diagnosed using cutting-edge technology, then they really have solutions to then be able to access the right treatment. And, of course, that helps those businesses.”

In China, while healthcare research and quality healthcare are at an international level in many cases, it is not always the reality in every hospital. “Currently, the healthcare resources are not very balanced. You can see that resources are mainly concentrated in the big hospitals. But, if you look at the population of China, 90% of the hospitals are not at the same level as the big hospitals. The community hospitals and the small hospitals which see most patients are just not at the same level. So, if we can develop advanced tools or assisting tools with AI by working in the big hospitals, and then leverage those tools for use in the smaller hospitals, that could really help patients who don’t have the same access to quality healthcare,” says Sun.

As such, there are several innovation fields that Merck is looking at, such as liquid biopsy, bio-sensing, and AI-enabled healthcare solutions that exemplify the type of cross-sector innovation they intend to achieve in order to raise the overall level of China’s healthcare system. Sun describes that, “For AI-enabled healthcare solutions we have identified how artificial intelligence can massively affect several areas, such as with diagnosis rates and how to improve diagnosis overall. Another area is in drug discovery, and how artificial intelligence can help in clinical development to make treatments more cost effective, more accurate, and more widely available.”

Thanks to their in-depth understanding of local and global markets, and their ability to meet the needs of patients, Merck China is exploring and expanding in an array of different areas which are developing rapidly. In building out their global footprint and leveraging the creative and innovative minds of their employees around the world, Sun and Merck China are helping the global brand build off of a historic 350-year portfolio with solutions and digital technologies that will be able to provide people in China, and people around the world, with a better experience, better outcomes, and better lives.