Abstract
This study is a count of the publications of a sample of the major pharmaceutical multinational companies. These firms have been divided into three geopolitical groups: Europe, the United States and Japan. Results obtained show that research activities in this industry have been subjected to some changes between 1965 and 1979. Among these changes is the growing importance of fundamental research, the erosion of the leadership of U.S.-based firms and the growing importance of overseas research.
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SCHNEEOp. Cit., has shown that the proportion of foreign R&D budgets of pharmaceutical U.S. based MNCs has risen from 5.0% in 1961 to an average of 14.9% in the 1973–6 period (the figure was 7.5% in 1965). However, since the cost of research seems to have increased more rapidly in Europe, Japan and Canada than in the U.S. (MANSFIELD, TEECE, ROMEO,Op. Cit.), and because firms conducted more fundamental research abroad (an expensive kind of research), the results obtained bySchnee are not so different different from those obtained in the present study. It should be mentioned thatSchnee also gave data related to the foreign R&D personnel. The figures (adapted from SCHNEE,Op. Cit.) are 11.3% of the total staff in 1965, 10.2% in 1971 and 13.3% in 1975; these data are more consistent with the findings of this study.
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Guay, Y. Internationalization of industrial research: The pharmaceutical industry; 1965–1979. Scientometrics 13, 189–213 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02019958
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02019958