Carroll believes that InnoCentive can win over much of the drug industry, reasoning that access to the best minds in the world is critical to the industry's success. And he maintains that despite the minefield of concerns over risk and intellectual-property rights, InnoCentive will attract scientists -- simply because it gives them a compelling glimpse of a different kind of future.

"When scientists look at us, they see a choice," explains Carroll. "They can continue to work for large, R&D-based organizations, or they can become free agents and work for themselves. Under certain circumstances, they might even do both. Free agency has never been an option in the hard sciences -- until now."

Learn more about InnoCentive online (www.innocentive.com). For a collection of articles on innovation and the pharmaceutical business, click here.

Sidebar: Lab Partner

How does a pharmaceutical giant in Indianapolis tap into a global community of independent professionals? It turns to a small company in Indianapolis that taps into a global community of independent professionals.

Quovix LLC is a 10-person outfit backed by a virtual workforce of 455 free-agent programmers. It designed the software that enables InnoCentive to set up Web-based workspaces. How do you harness a workforce of 455 coders, most of whom you've never met? "Simple," says Marty Morrow, CEO of the two-year-old startup. "I focus on the three phases of virtual-product development: water, slush, and ice."

The water stage occurs when Quovix lands an assignment. Morrow's team posts the project to Quovix's Web site, where developers click in with feedback. "Hundreds of people provide input and ideas," says Morrow.

If Quovix wins the contract, it enters the slush stage. "We define the project down to a gnat's eyelash and put it out for more feedback. Then we put a price tag on the project, and we run a reverse auction. The person with the most experience and lowest bid wins."

Once the project is awarded, it enters the ice stage. This is when the work gets done. "We have tighter control over the developers in our community than most companies have over staff developers who are sitting 20 feet away," says Morrow. "We run daily test patterns on their work, and we know within a day if we've got a problem."