Case Study: GlaxoSmithKline advances bioelectronics research with Wazoku

GlaxoSmithKline crowdsources bioelectronics ideas with Wazoku in a $5,000 challenge

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), a global healthcare company, sought to advance its research into a potentially disruptive new class of treatments known as bioelectronics. The challenge was to identify the best disease to serve as a testbed, or 'proof-of-principle', for these medicines, ensuring their internal team hadn't missed any critical research angles. To achieve this, GSK partnered with vendor Wazoku and leveraged its InnoCentive Solver community.

Wazoku's platform engaged 397 solvers worldwide, who generated 66 possible solutions. The winning solution, which proposed a novel area for proofing that GSK's own research had not identified, came from a solver in Bulgaria citing a Mexican publication. This approach, achieved with a modest award, complemented GSK's existing research methods, ensured diversity of thinking, helped them understand the field's key players, and led to an ongoing collaboration with the solver.

GlaxoSmithKline