Drugs to Market: Creating Value and Advantage in the Pharmaceutical Industry

This volume illustrates the long-term impact of technological evolution on competition in an industry. Specifically, it explores the interactions of technology, legal and regulatory changes, and competitive practice in the US pharmaceutical market in the years since 1945. The entire evolving landscape of competition is presented as the industry moves from the development of deep-tank fermentation of penicillin through the first decade of biotechnology. For both the market as a whole and the individual firm this text illustrates how competitive positions actually emerge as a result of technological interactions. In examining the dynamics of competition, the concept of core competencies is used extensively to show how firms developed and maintained their competitive strengths on the firm level. Consistent with the wider view that has been set out, both the technological and the non-technological competencies of firms are discussed. Firm responses to the changing competitive environments in the 1970s and 1980s are further analyzed in a strategic group analysis.