Biotechnologies and innovating strategies in the pharmaceutical industry.

This paper presents an economic analysis of innovation strategies used in the pharmaceutical industry. It explores the relationship between the size of the firm and its capacity to innovate, because it is generally agreed that innovation is proportional to the size of the firm. However, biotech firms, which are generally small companies, have a number of advantages in terms of research and development. Though these firms are more innovative than large groups, they also need a huge amount of investment because the time from discovery of a molecule to the marketing of a new medicine is very long (10 to 15 years). We will show from a number of examples that different innovation strategies have developed. The aim of these strategies is to consolidate and combine the advantages big Pharma with those of small biotech firms. The first strategies were market-driven and in the form of R&D partnerships between big Pharma and biotech firms. The second came about as a result of industrial policy. From the case of France to Europe as a whole, we will explain network strategies and the creation of bioclusters, and the policies that lay behind them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]