Identifying Geographic Clusters: A Network Analytic Approach

In recent years there has been a growing interest in the role of networks and clusters in the global economy. Despite being a popular research topic in economics, sociology and urban studies, geographical clustering of human activity has often studied been by means of predetermined geographical units such as administrative divisions and metropolitan areas. This approach is intrinsically time invariant and it does not allow one to differentiate between different activities. Our goal in this paper is to present a new methodology for identifying clusters, that can be applied to different empirical settings. We use a graph approach based on k-shell decomposition to analyze world biomedical research clusters based on PubMed scientific publications. We identify research institutions and locate their activities in geographical clusters. Leading areas of scientific production and their top performing research institutions are consistently identified at different geographic scales

R&D, Within and Between Patent Competition in the Pharmaceutical Industry

We analyse the consequences of the increasing complexity of R&D on within- and between-patent competition in the pharmaceutical industry. The intensity of competition is measured by jointly considering the timing from market launch to patent expiry, the strength of between-patent competition as well as competition introduced by generic producers. A simple model is proposed that predicts the shrinking of product lifetimes in the presence of correlated parallel R&D projects and market portfolios. The model is tested using data on pharmaceutical products sold in Europe and in the US. Based on our model we are able to estimate the impact of R&D complexity and relatedness among R&D portfolios on the value of innovative drugs

Bibliometric Perspectives on Medical Innovation using the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of PubMed

Multiple perspectives on the nonlinear processes of medical innovations can be distinguished and combined using the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) of the Medline database. Focusing on three main branches-"diseases," "drugs and chemicals," and "techniques and equipment"-we use base maps and overlay techniques to investigate the translations and interactions and thus to gain a bibliometric perspective on the dynamics of medical innovations. To this end, we first analyze the Medline database, the MeSH index tree, and the various options for a static mapping from different perspectives and at different levels of aggregation. Following a specific innovation (RNA interference) over time, the notion of a trajectory which leaves a signature in the database is elaborated. Can the detailed index terms describing the dynamics of research be used to predict the diffusion dynamics of research results? Possibilities are specified for further integration between the Medline database, on the one hand, and the Science Citation Index and Scopus (containing citation information), on the other.Comment: forthcoming in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technolog

Global Competitiveness in Pharmaceuticals: A European Perspective

The report examines the competitive position of the European pharmaceutical companies and industries, and compares them with the pharmaceutical companies and industries in other parts of the world, particularly the US. Over the last two decades, the industry has experienced some important structural changes, mainly driven by technological and institutional shocks that have affected all the stages of its value chain. In turn, this has led to changes in firms' organisation and in market structure, within domestic markets, regionally, and globally. The main finding of the report is that the European industry has indeed been losing competitiveness as compared to the USA, although there are large differences and trends across European countries. As a whole, Europe is lagging behind in its ability to generate, organise, and sustain innovation processes that are increasingly expensive and organisationally complex. In fact, one conclusion of the report is that the relative position of the US as a locus of innovation in pharmaceuticals has increased over the past decade compared to Europe. All in all, the report claims that the competitiveness of the European pharmaceutical industry is negatively affected by the persistence of insufficient degrees of competition and institutional integration, still centred on domestic and fragmented health care and research systems. Four sets of variables have been found to be relevant as sources of competitiveness and growth in pharmaceuticals: 1) The size and the structure of the biomedical education and research systems; 2) Some basic institutions governing labor markets for skilled researchers and managers, as well as corporate governance and finance; 3) Intellectual property rights and patent law; 4) The institutional settings in the regulation of health care systems and, moreover, the nature and intensity of competition on the final market. The data analysed in this report come from OECD, Eurostat, the European Patent Office, IMS Health and PHID (PHarmaceutical Industry Database) at the University of Siena

The Local Emergence and Global Diffusion of Research Technologies: An Exploration of Patterns of Network Formation

Grasping the fruits of "emerging technologies" is an objective of many government priority programs in a knowledge-based and globalizing economy. We use the publication records (in the Science Citation Index) of two emerging technologies to study the mechanisms of diffusion in the case of two innovation trajectories: small interference RNA (siRNA) and nano-crystalline solar cells (NCSC). Methods for analyzing and visualizing geographical and cognitive diffusion are specified as indicators of different dynamics. Geographical diffusion is illustrated with overlays to Google Maps; cognitive diffusion is mapped using an overlay to a map based on the ISI Subject Categories. The evolving geographical networks show both preferential attachment and small-world characteristics. The strength of preferential attachment decreases over time, while the network evolves into an oligopolistic control structure with small-world characteristics. The transition from disciplinary-oriented ("mode-1") to transfer-oriented ("mode-2") research is suggested as the crucial difference in explaining the different rates of diffusion between siRNA and NCSC

Supplementary data associated with the article "Testing the science/technology relationship by analysis of patent citations of scientific papers after decomposition of both science and technology"

Supplementary data associated with the article "Testing the science/technology relationship by analysis of patent citations of scientific papers after decomposition of both science and technology"