Abstract
BackgroundDespite the significant impact of pharmaceutical innovations on healthcare, our understanding is still limited because previous studies explored only a few cases and largely came from a linear perspective. This study presents a detailed case of the Chinese and U.S. pharmaceutical patents and investigated advancements that the global pharmaceutical industry is experiencing. A network analysis approach was used to identify certain aspects regarding the diffusion of pharmaceutical innovations, including innovation attributes, adopter characteristics, and clustering.MethodsBased on a patent database, network analysis and visualization, this study captured the structure of patent networks for the global pharmaceutical landscape in a large set of patents. A large volume of patent data, 15,422 patent filings citing Chinese pharmaceutical patents, 28,075 citing U.S. patents, and 6064 citing both Chinese and U.S. patents during 2014–2015, were retrieved from the world patent database, Derwent Innovation Index. The networks reveal many interesting features of technological innovation, convergence trends and diffusion patterns.ResultsConvergence innovations were identified, with the advantage and influence of U.S. patents shown in a variety of areas, and their Chinese counterparts were concentrated in traditional Chinese medicine. Early adopters of Chinese patents were mainly universities within the national sector, while early adopters of U.S. patents were academic institutions and large international pharmaceutical corporations of balanced quantity, contributing a higher degree of technology convergence. Technology convergence in the cancer-treatment sector is expected to have a high future development potential.ConclusionChinese and U.S. pharmaceutical innovations contributed differently to the growth and development of the global pharmaceutical industry. The findings of this study can provide rich knowledge about the influence, diffusion and convergence trends of Chinese and U.S. pharmaceutical innovations. In the pharmaceutical industry, the findings may provide implications for researchers, policy makers, health professionals, and the general public to help improve the overall health of society.
Highlights
Despite the significant impact of pharmaceutical innovations on healthcare, our understanding is still limited because previous studies explored only a few cases and largely came from a linear perspective
Influential innovations in the global pharmaceutical patent landscape In this study, the cited pharmaceutical patents are regarded as innovations with the patent holders as innovators, and the assignees can be seen as early adopters
28,075 patent filings citing the pharmaceutical innovations patented in the United States and 15,422 citing Chinese pharmaceutical patents were retrieved
Summary
Despite the significant impact of pharmaceutical innovations on healthcare, our understanding is still limited because previous studies explored only a few cases and largely came from a linear perspective. The success of the pharmaceutical industry relies heavily on innovations made during research and development (R&D), especially in the form of patents [1, 3, 4]. The Chinese government has been making great efforts to boost pharmaceutical development and has achieved noticeable results given its long and rich pharmaceutical history, skillful workforce, cost-effective resources and unmatched potential domestic market size [1, 14, 16]. The apparent productivity crisis in the global pharmaceutical industry and the economic and political rise of China have contributed to renewed interest in the application of Chinese medicine for drug discovery [20]. During the Nobel Lectures in Physiology or Medicine, China’s pharmacologist Youyou Tu made a keynote speech entitled Discovery of Artemisinin – a gift from TCM to the world, in which she compared Chinese medicine and pharmacology to a great treasure-house and highlighted that more attention should be paid to TCM research and its potential for discoveries of more novel medicines beneficial to world healthcare [23,24,25,26,27,28]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
