Abstract
The traditional medicine industry has undergone rapid modernization in the last 20 years, spurred on by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Traditional Medicine Agenda to integrate traditional medicine as a complement to conventional Western medicine. While the current literature tends to visualize traditional medical systems in silos within the context of their own national interests, we aim to evaluate and explore the changing innovation landscape in traditional medicine across several selected Asian economies in order to provide a snapshot of capability in this rapidly growing field of study. Adopting an evolutionary perspective of industrial progress, this study utilizes data relating to scientific publications and trademarks to indicate the trajectory of knowledge production and commercialization in traditional medicine, and thus to assess the modernization efforts of the selected economies. For this study, we observe innovative activity in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand between 1993 and 2012. The results show that Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and South Korea have the most sophisticated innovation systems in terms of capability and productivity in the fields of science and innovation. Japan and Singapore have also shown strong growth, while Thailand and Malaysia are lagging behind the other selected economies.
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