Suchergebnisse

This paper provides an analysis of the implications of 1992 on the European pharmaceutical industry and sets it within the wider restructuring of the industry. The creation of a single European pharmaceutical market will, however, be gradual and will often present conflicting tendencies. The response of the major drug companies to the period of rapid technological change associated with the development of biotechnology is assessed. Their financial power together with their control of key knowledge and information assets, in the form of R&D and sales and marketing networks, has been a central element in their survival and growth. It has been presented that the power of large firms in terms of control and vertical integration has shifted away from production to nonproduction assets.

In this paper are presented the results of an analysis of the location and organisation of product innovation and sophistication in the UK pharmaceutical industry. Significant spatial variations in plant product technological sophistication were identified on an urban-size basis, with factories located in smaller urban centres less likely to be of low-technology status. In terms of nonspatial factors it was the organisational characteristics of the companies, rather than the plants themselves, that were influential in determining product sophistication. The importance of the spatially dispersed nature of manufacturing by large, often foreign, firms was confirmed as having an important role in the pattern of plant product sophistication within the UK pharmaceutical industry.

Cover -- Intervention and Technological Innovation -- Contents -- List of Tables -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- 1 Introduction -- 2 The Social and Political Context of the Pharmaceutical Industry in the UK and Japan -- 3 The Economic and Technological Framework of Pharmaceuticals -- 4 Promotion, Prices and Profits -- 5 Patent Policy -- 6 Science and Technology Policy in the UK and Japan: A Support Framework for Pharmaceuticals? -- 7 Biotechnology Policies and Innovation Support Infrastructure in the Context of Pharmaceuticals -- 8 Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.

This paper presents an examination of filter-down theory in relation to the location and technological sophistication of manufacturing establishments within the UK pharmaceutical industry. By means of data drawn from a survey of eighty-three pharmaceutical manufacturing companies, the paper considers the technological sophistication both of firms and of plants according to their location as defined by settlement size, degree of urbanization, and their broader centre-periphery regional setting. Given the overall location of the UK pharmaceutical industry, it is shown that there is no significant technological bias in favour of firms or plants located in larger settlements, in more urbanized areas, or within more centrally located regions. In part this result was associated with the decentralized location of manufacturing units controlled by large technologically advanced corporate organizations. The survey data also revealed that on an intracorporate basis there was no evidence that more distant plants, in relation to their main innovation or headquarters location, tended to be less technologically sophisticated.