Twenty-first century vaccinomics innovation systems: capacity building in the global South and the role of Product Development Partnerships (PDPs)

The availability of sequence information from publicly available complete genomes and data intensive sciences, together with next-generation sequencing technologies offer substantial promise for innovation in vaccinology and global public health in the beginning of the 21st century. This article presents an innovation analysis for the nascent field of vaccinomics by describing one of the major challenges in this endeavor: the need for capacities in “vaccinomics innovation systems” to support the developing countries involved in the creation and testing of new vaccines. In particular, we discuss the need for understanding how institutional frameworks can enhance capacities as intrinsic to a systems approach to health technology development. We focus our attention on the global South, meaning the technically less advanced and developing nations in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. This focus is timely and appropriate because the challenge for innovation in postgenomics medicine is markedly much greater in these regions where basic infrastructures are often underresourced and new or the anticipated institutional relationships can be fragile. Importantly, we examine the role of Product Development Partnerships (PDPs) as a 21st century organizational innovation that contributes to strengthening fragile institutions and capacity building. For vaccinomics innovation systems to stand the test of time in a context of global public health, local communities, knowledge, and cultures need to be collectively taken into account at all stages in programs for vaccinomics-guided vaccine development and delivery in the global South where the public health needs for rational vaccine development are urgent

Padrões tecnológicos e processo de inovação de produtos: o caso da Itautec-Philco S.A. Technology standards and product innovation process: the case of itautec-philco

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar e discutir a influência dos padrões tecnológicos no processo de inovação de produtos da indústria de computadores, focalizando o caso em que se tem de lidar com padrões já estabelecidos. Com este fim foi estudado o processo de definição de produtos da linha de microcomputadores fabricados pela Itautec-Philco S.A. O trabalho mostra que os padrões tecnológicos da indústria devem ser cuidadosamente considerados nas análises das decisões de projeto da empresa, pois condicionam as direções e os ritmos das estratégias tecnológicas e das mudanças técnicas implementadas.<br>This article seeks to illustrate the influence of technology standards in the process of product innovation. An analysis of the situation in which firms have to deal with industry standards already established was carried out as well as the analysis of the product definition process of the microcomputer line developed by Itautec-Philco S.A, a Brazilian computer company. This article shows that computer technology standards are a core element to consider in the analysis of the project decisions, because they condition directions and rates of technology strategies and technical changes implemented