The Role of the Health System in Health Biotechnology in Developing Countries

Abstract

This paper examines the role of local health systems in developing countries in health biotechnology innovation. The heath systems encompass the final users of health biotechnology products and services. In innovation studies in general, users have been identified as playing vital roles as sources for innovation and in shaping the innovation process. It is therefore of interest to cast light upon the role of users in the health biotechnology innovation in developing countries. This paper briefly reviews literature on science and technology based health innovation in both industrialised and developing countries. It then examines to what extent the focus of developing countries is on their local health problems and explores the linkages between the organisations involved in research and development of health biotechnology products and services with the local health system, and thereby identifies the main roles of their own health systems in the innovation process. The paper bases this analysis on research on publication patterns and case studies on leading developing countries in health biotechnology and focuses particularly on health biotechnology development in Brazil, Cuba and India.

Acknowledgements

The author wants to thank all the collaborators in the study on Health Biotechnology Innovation in Developing Countries, published as a special issue of Nature Biotechnology in December 2004, for their research and discussions that helped conceive this paper. Particular thanks go to Marcela Ferrer and Nandini Kumar who worked on the case studies on Brazil and India and Tirso W. Sáenz for discussions on the Cuban case study. Thanks also to Science Metrix for their scientometric analysis of health biotechnology publications in developing countries and to all the experts interviewed for the case studies who generously shared their expertise and time. Any errors in this paper are the responsibility of the author. The McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, Program on Life Sciences, Ethics and Policy is primarily supported by Genome Canada through the Ontario Genomics Institute and the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Other matching partners are listed at http://www.geneticsethics.net. The author is supported by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator Award.

Notes

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