Pierre Azoulay

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Pierre Azoulay

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Pierre Azoulay is the International Programs Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

His research focuses on the impact of different funding regimes on the rate and direction of scientific progress. He is also part of a large team surveying management practices and culture in scientific laboratories on a large scale. His latest projects examine the complex relationship between risk and return in scientific research.

At MIT Sloan, he teaches courses on competitive strategy, technology strategy, and platform strategy, as well as a PhD class on the economics of ideas, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

He holds a Diplôme d’Études Supérieures de Gestion from the Institut National des Télécommunications, an MA from Michigan State University, and a PhD in Management from MIT.

 

Publications

"Paper Tiger? Chinese Science and Home Bias in Citations."

Qiu, Shumin, Claudia Steinwender, and Pierre Azoulay. Journal of International Economics Vol. 157, (2025): 104123. Also NBER Working Paper #32468.

"Indirect Cost Recovery in U.S. Innovation Policy: History, Evidence, and Avenues for Reform."

Azoulay, Pierre, Daniel P. Gross, and Bhaven N. Sampat, Working Paper. March 2025. Also NBER Working Paper #33627.

"Medical Progress and Health Care Finance: Evidence from Academic Medical Centers."

Azoulay, Pierre, Misty Heggeness, and Jennifer Kao. Research Policy Vol. 54, No. 2 (2025): 105163.

"Does Peer Review Penalize Scientific Risk Taking? Evidence from NIH Grant Renewals."

Pierre Azoulay and Wesley H. Greenblatt, Working Paper. February 2025. NBER Working Paper #33495.

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Recent Insights

Ideas Made to Matter

New research examines ways the generative AI marketplace might evolve

The race for dominance in the AI marketplace hinges on who controls its complementary assets, researchers assert.

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Media Highlights

Press WBUR

A quest to end breast cancer slows as the Trump-Harvard dispute drags on

A new study found that more than half of drugs approved by the FDA since 2000 used NIH-funded research that would likely not have happened if the NIH had operated with a 40% smaller budget. "We can't say, 'But for that grant, that drug would not have come into existence,'" said professor Pierre Azoulay, a co-author of the study. "But it makes us at least want to pause and say, 'What are we doing here? Are we shooting ourselves in the foot?'"

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Press FierceBiotech

'Alternative history' of the NIH shows how a 40% budget cut may thwart new medicines

A new study by professors Pierre Azoulay, Danielle Li, and co-authors, has revealed the potential impacts a smaller National Institutes of Health (NIH) would have had on past drug development. If the NIH budget had been 40% smaller from 1980 to 2007 — the level of cuts that President Donald Trump has proposed for the agency — the science underlying numerous drugs approved in the 21st century would not have been funded, according to the analysis. "Cuts today are going to have effects starting 15 years from now, roughly, and then accelerating from there," Azoulay said.

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Executive Education

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Platform Strategy

Over the past two decades, some of the most profitable and successful firms are those that have adopted a digital platform model—a platform strategy whereby the company allows two or more disparate groups to interact over a platform to co-create value; for example, website developers and users on Akamai, recruiters and employees on LinkedIn, and drivers and customers on Uber. In this program, participants eager to develop or launch a digital platform approach will learn why and how their business strategies may need to be revised to be successful.

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This intensive program details a unique and powerful approach to integrating business and technology strategy and to developing profitable ventures and technologies. Participants are introduced to a set of tools to identify high-leverage projects, match product strategy to market dynamics, capture market value, and change organizational capabilities to reflect evolving markets and technological dynamics.

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