• We analyzed 21 leading research-based pharmaceutical companies by global sales 2019 regarding their inbound R&D activities between 2015 and 2019.
• Over the last decade open innovation (OI) has found its way into and is a widely used R&D model of the research-based pharmaceutical industry.
• The depth and breadth of implementation differs greatly across major industry players: While four pharmaceutical companies (Novartis, Otsuka, Gilead, and Allergan) rely more on traditional R&D concepts, the vast majority (15 out of 21 companies) also uses network-based OI models to supplement R&D. And two companies (Bayer and AstraZeneca) have opened their R&D into ecosystem-enabled.