Biotechnology and the UK 2000-05: Globalization and innovation

This paper discusses some selected topics seen as being most important in currently affecting the development of biotechnology in the UK. The importance of demand side factors such as the role of professional experts, regulatory bodies, retailers, public opinion and political activity in stimulating or discouraging innovation in biotechnology is discussed. Supply side factors are then analysed, particularly the major changes in the organizations which generate biotechnology innovations - especially collaborative alliances and network firms, and the restructuring of the chemical, pharmaceutical and agro-food industries which use biotechnology, via merger, acquisition, demerger and divestment. Two important aspects of the infrastructure for innovation, which are rapidly changing and generating debate and concern, are then considered. These are intellectual property regimes on the one hand, and corporate governance and the sources of finance for investment on the other. The issue of globalization of innovative activity in biotechnology and in the industries which use it is addressed next, and it is concluded that collaborative alliances are the main mechanism by which overseas sourcing of technology is taking place. Finally, future trends and some policy implications are considered.

[1]  E. Hobsbawm.  The Age of Empire: 1875–1914 , 1989 .

[2]  S. Timmermans.  Closed-Chest Cardiac Massage: The Emergence of a Discovery Trajectory , 1999 .

[3]  Michel Bauer.  The politics of state‐directed privatisation: The case of France, 1986–88 , 1988 .

[4]  David Coates,et al.  Models of Capitalism: Growth and Stagnation in the Modern Era , 2000 .

[5]  Maurice Cassier,et al.  Private property, collective property, and public property in the age of genomics , 2002 .

[6]  H. Wilson.  Are the business angels of today the venture capitalists of yesterday , 1995 .

[7]  R. Nelson,et al.  The benefits and costs of strong patent protection: a contribution to the current debate , 1998 .

[8]  M. Casson.  International Business and Global Integration , 1992 .

[9]  Luke Georghiou,et al.  Integrating technology into merger and acquisition decision making , 1998 .

[10]  Michel Callon,et al.  Is Science a Public Good? Fifth Mullins Lecture, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 23 March 1993 , 1994 .

[11]  Richard R. Nelson,et al.  The Co-evolution of Technology, Industrial Structure, and Supporting Institutions , 1994 .

[12]  M. Maclean.  Towards a European model? A comparative evaluation of recent corporate governance initiatives in France and the UK , 1999 .

[13]  Ian Miles,et al.  Bringing computer power to the consumer market , 1993 .

[14]  J. Zysman.  Governments, Markets and Growth: Financial Systems and the Politics of Industrial Change , 1983 .

[15]  Roberto Simonetti,et al.  Globalization, foreign direct investment and innovation: A European perspective , 2000 .

[16]  Rebecca Henderson.  One Point of View: Drug Industry Mergers Won't Necessarily Benefit R&D , 2000 .

[17]  S. L. Star,et al.  Regions of the Mind: Brain Research and the Quest for Scientific Certainty , 1989 .

[18]  M. Strathern.  Potential property. Intellectual rights and property in persons , 1996 .

[19]  G. Pálsson,et al.  For Whom the Cell Tolls , 2002, Current Anthropology.

[20]  Hélène Mialet.  Do Angels Have Bodies? Two Stories About Subjectivity in Science: , 1999 .

[21]  Martin Rhodes,et al.  Capital unbound? The transformation of European corporate governance , 1998 .

[22]  Rebecca S. Eisenberg,et al.  Public Research and Private Development: Patents and Technology Transfer in Government-Sponsored Research , 1996 .

[23]  Léa Velho,et al.  Knowledge Frontiers: Public Sector Research and Industrial Innovation in Biotechnology, Engineering Ceramics, and Parallel Computing , 1995 .

[24]  Vivien Walsh,et al.  Invention and innovation in the chemical industry: Demand-pull or discovery-push?☆ , 1993 .

[25]  R. B.,et al.  The United Nations , 1947, Nature.

[26]  M. Akrich.  User Representations: Practices, Methods and Sociology , 1995 .

[27]  Rosemary J. Coombe.  The Cultural Life of Intellectual Properties: Authorship, Appropriation, and the Law , 1998 .

[28]  J. Goodman,et al.  Cancer chemotherapy, biodiversity, public and private property: the case of the anti-cancer drug taxol. , 1999, Social science & medicine.

[29]  E. Hobsbawm.  The Age of empire , 1987 .

[30]  V. Walsh.  Demand, public markets and innovation in biotechnology , 1993 .

[31]  Paulo Velho,et al.  First the seed; the political economy of plant biotechnology , 1991 .

[32]  Eric von Hippel,et al.  How learning by doing is done: problem identification in novel process equipment☆ , 1995 .

[33]  John Kay,et al.  The economics of intellectual property rights , 1993 .

[34]  S. Winter,et al.  An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change , 1984 .

[35]  M. Callon.  Society in the making: The study of technology as a tool for sociological analysis , 1987 .

[36]  M. Sharp,et al.  The science of nations: European multinationals and American biotechnology , 1999 .

[37]  Gavin J. Wright.  An evolutionary theory of economic change , 1982 .

[38]  Birgitte Andersen,et al.  Copyrights, competition and development: the case of the music industry , 2000 .

[39]  D. Lecraw.  Alliance Capitalism and Global Business , 1997 .

[40]  Bengt-Åke Lundvall,et al.  The Social Dimension of the Learning Economy , 1996 .

[41]  P. Patel,et al.  Localised Production of Technology for Global Markets , 1995 .

[42]  P Ramirez.  Globalisation, technology and organisational change in the pharmaceutical industry. , 2003 .

[43]  R. Rothwell.  Small firms, innovation and industrial change , 1989 .

[44]  Richard Hull,et al.  The construction of the techno-economic: networks vs. paradigms , 1999 .

[45]  Antoine Hennion,et al.  An Intermediary Between Production and Consumption: The Producer of Popular Music , 1989 .

[46]  Vivien Walsh,et al.  Small-firm formation in biotechnology: A comparison of France, Britain and Canada , 1995 .

[47]  Simon Forge,et al.  The shape of things to consume , 1996 .

[48]  Martin Kenney,et al.  Venture capital-financed innovation and technological change in the USA , 1988 .

[49]  J. Howells.  The globalisation of research and technological innovation: a new agenda? , 1997 .

[50]  M. Callon,et al.  Technological competition, strategies of the firms and the choice of the first users: the case of road guidance technologies , 1995 .

[51]  Henry I. Miller,et al.  The Story of Taxol: Nature and Politics in the Pursuit of an Anti-Cancer Drug , 2001, Nature Medicine.

[52]  V. Walsh.  Technology and the Economy—the Key Relationships , 1994 .

[53]  G. Ietto-Gillies,et al.  European integration and global corporate strategies , 2000 .

[54]  M. Strathern.  Cutting the Network , 1996 .

[55]  J. Cantwell.  The Globalisation of Technology: What Remains of the Product Cycle Model? , 1995 .

[56]  V. Walsh,et al.  Invention and Innovation in the Chemical Industry : Demand-pull or Discovery-push? : Research Policy , 1987 .

[57]  C. Freeman.  Economics of Industrial Innovation , 1975 .

[58]  Richard R. Nelson,et al.  On limiting or encouraging rivalry in technical progress: The effect of patent scope decisions , 1994 .