Abstract
The pharmaceutical sector is a flagship of the economy in most developed countries and is one of the most research-intensive sectors of modern economies. The aim of this paper was to determine the mutual relationships between the research and development (R&D) resources, various indicators of scientific performance and the competitiveness of the sector. We carried out a cointegration analysis of a time series of R+D resources, the number of academic papers published, as well as patents and the competitiveness of this sector in various developed states. The econometric analysis of time series is built on panel cointegration models. Based on the combination of different comprehensive and coherent international databases and applying the latest methods of modern time series analysis, the paper proves that, in most developed countries, a direct, significant, causal, lagged relationship between the monetary resources allocated to R&D and the number of academic papers, as well as the number of patents can be observed. In most cases, a causal relationship can be demonstrated between the number of academic papers and patents, but vice versa, this fact is not provable. This study highlights the complexity of innovation systems in the pharmaceutical sector. The results prove only a weak connection between the number of patents and the number of publications. When evaluating the efficiency of the utilisation of resources allocated to pharmaceutical R+D, the effect of the time lag should be considered.
Highlights
The pharmaceutical industry is an elementary precondition in the realisation of sustainable development goals of the United Nations, [1,2]
Foreign research and development (R&D) has a positive effect on domestic factor productivity, but this depends on the openness of the economy
This—at first surprising—fact can be explained by the high level of complexity of pharmaceutical development, but the changes in the relative importance of the pharmaceutical sector involve a change in the amount of money allocated for research and development
Summary
The pharmaceutical industry is an elementary precondition in the realisation of sustainable development goals of the United Nations, [1,2]. Development of new and cheaper drugs [4] is a necessary precondition for maintaining the health, motivation and capacities of the population, contributing to the reduction of poverty, which is a basic development goal. The increasing significance of the “green chemistry” approach [10,11,12] in the pharmaceutical industry is a direct contribution to the decreasing carbon footprint [13], responsible production and consumption, and mitigation of climate change. It can be stated that the development of the pharmaceutical industry is a key factor to achieve the sustainable development goals of the UN [17]
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