ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the global dimensions of high-tech firm strategies in the context of the pharmaceutical industry. It examines the institutional structure of the global pharmaceutical industry, key players in the industry, R&D funding, Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) from the perspective of developed-country multinational enterprises (MNEs) versus developing countries. Governments regulate the industry in many ways, including the granting of patents, approval of new drugs, controlling and/or influencing prices and promotion. Large, vertically integrated pharmaceutical companies fund and perform much of the developmental work associated with new drugs as well as manufacture and market them. Prior to TRIPs, many emerging countries did not recognize pharmaceutical product patents. As a result, emerging-country generics controlled the domestic market and eventually began to export to other developing countries as well as the developed-country markets. It was against this background that the developed-country MNEs pushed for TRIPs in order to increase the appropriability of their innovations.
