The Evolution of the Biotechnology Sector in Austria. Evidence Using Patents Over the Time Period 1990-2010

Abstract

Today it is widely recognized that biotechnology is one of the key sectors of the emerging knowledge based economy (see, e.g., Trippl and Todtling 2007). Revenues and turnovers from biotechnology applications – here defined to include all applications of science and technology to living organisms, as well as parts, products and models thereof – have increased considerably, in particular over the last two decades. A specific property of the biotechnology industry is its knowledge-intensive character. Thus, the biotechnology sector is highly localized in geographical space, stressing the importance of knowledge interactions at the local level, most often within in local clusters. Until late 1990s, Austria has often been considered to be lagging concerning the evolution of the biotechnology sector and its contribution to overall macro-economic development. This has also been recognized by the Austrian economic policy as well as Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policy that has put the commercialization and development of biotechnology on the top of their agenda after millennium. The initiative “LISA-Life Science Austria” is the most prominent example in this context, promoting the foundation of new companies in biotechnology and the formation of networks between the industry and the science sector in this field. Based on these policy efforts, several biotech clusters have appeared in the meantime, most prominently the Vienna biotech cluster mainly focusing on medical biotechnology (red biotechnology). The focus of this chapter is on the development of the Austrian biotechnology sector over the past two decades. The objective is to describe the development of the sector from a quantitative perspective, using patents as main indicator to track knowledge production activities. We identify relevant patents from the PATSTAT database of the OECD which enables us to systematically trace knowledge production in the Austrian biotechnology sector between 1990 and 2010, disaggregated by different, detailed technological fields and regions. Furthermore, determinants of knowledge production activities at the firm level are tested by means of a panel econometrics, relating knowledge production activities of Austrian biotechnology actors to relevant actor-specific characteristics, such as R&D expenditures. The results will provide a systematic insight into the evolution of the Austrian biotechnology sector, tracing the development across different technological fields and identifying determinants of the observed development.