Does the recombination of distant scientific knowledge generate valuable inventions? An analysis of pharmaceutical patents

In view of the valuable and heterogeneous roles of science in technological development, we investigate the extent to which the cognitive distance and geographical boundary-spanning search of scientific knowledge affect the value of inventions in this study. In particular, we examine the diverse influencing mechanisms of scientific and technological knowledge as well as their interplay in the recombination process of invention. By analyzing the pharmaceutical patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office from 2010 to 2019, alongside their citations of scientific publications, we reveal that the cognitive distance of scientific knowledge has an inverted U-shaped impact on the value of inventions in terms of both their technological impacts and economic value, whereas the cognitive distance of technological knowledge has a positive and an inverted U-shaped effect on the technological impacts and the economic value of inventions, respectively. Moreover, the cognitive distances of these two types of knowledge exhibit a complementary relationship with regard to the technological impacts of inventions while displaying a weakly substitutive relationship concerning the economic value of inventions. Notably, combining moderately distant scientific knowledge and distant technological knowledge obtains the highest value of inventions in terms of both technological impacts and economic value. Additionally, geographical boundary-spanning search of science significantly raises both the technological impacts and the economic value of inventions.