Frameworks for Pharmaceutical Innovation in Developing Countries—The Case of Indian Pharma

Abstract

Some industrially advanced developing countries have, in the last decades, built substantial pharmaceutical scientific and industrial capabilities. The more advanced of these countries have built chemical and biological R&D, generic and reverse engineering, and drug discovery capabilities. There have been tremendous barriers to entry but nevertheless a range of imitative approaches have evolved, with some significant scientific, health and industrial advances. Opportunities in India are in part created by the problems of maturity being faced by big pharmaceutical firms in developed countries. Big pharmaceutical firms are searching for novel approaches to retain a high value-added model of innovation for drug development. These difficulties provide opportunities for innovative companies in developing countries. This paper explores the challenges faced under these circumstances by Indian pharmaceutical companies. Are they attempting to ‘catch-up’ by chasing a failing model of innovation? Do they have an alternative model? Or can they become an important part of a transformed new global model of pharmaceutical innovation?

Notes

1. Including the articles by D. Kale & S. Little, From imitation to innovation: the evolution of R&D capabilities and learning processes in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 19(5), 2007; and K. Chaturvedi, J. Chataway & D. Wield, Policy, markets and knowledge: strategic synergies of Indian pharmaceutical firms, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 19(5), 2007.

2. H. Thorsteinsdóttir, The role of the health system in health biotechnology in developing countries, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 19(5), 2007; H. Thorsteinsdóttir, T. W. Saenz, U. Quach, A. S. Daar & P. A. Singer, Cuba—innovation through synergy, Nature Biotechnology, 22, 2004, DC19–24.

3. L. Kim, Imitation to Innovation: the Dynamics of Korea's Technological Learning (Cambridge, MA, Harvard Business School Press, 1997); M. Hobday, Firm-level innovation models: perspectives on research in developed and developing countries, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 17(2), 2005, pp. 121–146.

4. J. Chataway and J. Smith, The international AIDS vaccine initiative (IAVI): is it getting new science and technology to the world's neglected majority, World Development, 34(1), 2006, pp. 16–30.

5. See S. Chaturvedi, Exploring interlinkages between national and sectoral innovation systems for rapid technological catch-up: case of Indian biopharmaceutical industry, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 19(5), 2007.

6. J. Tait, Systemic interactions in life science innovation, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 19(3), 2007, pp. 257–277.

7. C-P. Milne, Fixing the paradigm for biopharmaceutical R&D: where to start?, Int. J. Biotechnology, 2008, in press.

8. Tait, op. cit., Ref. 6.

9. Ibid.

10. J. Mittra, The socio-political economy of pharmaceutical mergers: a case study of Sanofi and Aventis, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 18(5), 2006, pp. 473–496, and J. Mittra, Life science innovation and the restructuring of the pharmaceutical industry: merger, acquisition and stratetic alliance behaviour of large firms, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 19(3), 2007, pp. 279–301.

11. Chaturvedi et al., op. cit., Ref. 1.

12. Thorsteinsdóttir et al., op. cit., Ref. 2.

13. Chaturvedi et al., op. cit., Ref. 1, p. 15. That article charts the impact of recent increases in R&D of Indian firms.

14. Kale & Little, op. cit., Ref. 1.

15. D. J. Bower & J. Sulej, The Indian challenge: the evolution of a successful new global strategy in the pharmaceutical industry, Technology Analysis and Strategic Management, 19(5), 2007.

16. Ibid.

17. Thorsteinsdóttir, op. cit., Ref. 2.

18. Kale & Little, op. cit., Ref. 1.

19. Bower & Sulej, op. cit., Ref. 15.

20. A. Sharma, Stem cell research in India: emerging scenario and policy concerns, Asian Biotechnology and Development Review, 8(3), 2006, pp. 43–53.

21. Tait, op. cit., Ref. 6.

22. One exception is Novo Nordisk.

23. Chataway & Smith, op. cit., Ref. 4.

24. See J. Murphy (Ed.), The Governance of Sustainable Technology (London, Earthscan, 2007), for a number of examples of such attempts. For more on the way in which PPPs operate, see J. Chataway, S. Brusoni, E. Cacciatori, R. Hanlin & L.Orsenigo, The international AIDS vaccine initiative (IAVI) in a changing landscape of vaccine development: a public private partnerships as knowledge broker and integrator, European Journal of Development Research, 19(1), 2007, pp. 100–117.

25. Chaturvedi et al., op. cit., Ref. 1.