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14 - The dynamics of knowledge accumulation, regulation, and appropriability in the pharma-biotech sector: policy issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Luigi Orsenigo ,
Giovanni Dosi  and
Mariana Mazzucato
Edited by
Mariana Mazzucato  and
Giovanni Dosi
Luigi Orsenigo
Affiliation:
Department of Engineering, University of Brescia; Centro di Ricerca sui Processi di Innovazione e Internazionalizzazione, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy
Giovanni Dosi
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Economics and Management, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy
Mariana Mazzucato
Affiliation:
Economic and Social Research Council Innogen Centre, Open University, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Mariana Mazzucato
Affiliation:
The Open University, Milton Keynes
Giovanni Dosi
Affiliation:
Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa
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Summary

The contributions to this book enrich from a variety of angles our understanding of how the dynamics of knowledge affect the dynamics of firms and industry structures. In this concluding chapter, we discuss some associated policy implications regarding the future of the innovation process in the pharmaceutical industry and the institutional setup supporting it.

Institutions, industry organization, and innovation: a bird's-eye view

The policy debate in this arena has become extremely intense and often bitter in recent years. The issues at stake concern an area – health care – the importance of which for society is fundamental and rapidly increasing; indeed, they are becoming crucial elements in the very definition of notions such as welfare, justice, and democracy in the new century.

Many fundamental issues in the policy debate on the pharmaceutical industry, however, are certainly not new. Ever since its inception the market for drugs has been (almost) always and everywhere regulated, albeit for different reasons and in different ways. At the same time, the extent and the forms of the regulation have most often sparked discussion and conflict. For example, considerations linked to consumer protection led, throughout most of the twentieth century, to increasingly stringent requirements for the approval of new drugs, and implied larger and more costly clinical trials. The presence of significant information asymmetries in the market for drugs coupled with fundamental considerations of social and economic equity have often been used to justify the introduction of various forms of price regulation.

Type
Chapter
Information
Knowledge Accumulation and Industry Evolution
The Case of Pharma-Biotech
 , pp. 402 - 431
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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