Results

The Toolkit – Revised Edition

The Target approach presented here will help policymakers form a strategic road map and determine feasible interventions that lead to  a functioning biotechnology system of innovation within a country or region. The goal is not to present a single recipe of specific policies for success; as will be noted later on, the variety of cases and their development mean that no single path to a functionally biotechnology sector can be realistically described. What the Target approach does offer is a way for policymakers to work through this complexity and come up with a tailored, context specific strategy based on realistic assessments of their country or region‟s resources and capacities.

We aim to describe the  emergence/transformation of local clusters/industries in a globally competitive environment with a view to develop dynamically effective policy tools.  The Target approach is based on an evolutionary theory of innovation, the Extended Industry Life Cycle (EILC), which sees different sectors as going through a life cycle of development. At different stages of a sector‟s progress, the ground work for development to the next stage is laid and the specifics of this groundwork will influence how the subsequent stage is realized. When describing the different phases of evolution, sector drivers will be discussed which are key to moving the sector through the phases to maturity. The drivers described as necessary to take into consideration for assessment purposes and policy action fall under science, commercial capacity/experience, finance, and human resources. They also include “other institutions” which would include IP, a working health delivery system, and different regulatory systems which can affect the costs of the biotech sector (e.g. drug regulation, tax regime).  These categories of drivers will be used when discussing the phases of evolution, however the individual drivers and their values/qualities will change phase by phase; these changes should be reflected in policy interventions implemented to reach Target goals.

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