Location of value added activities in hi-tech industries. The case of pharma-biotech firms in Italy

Luciano Fratocchi (), Alberto Onetti (), Alessia Pisoni () and Marco Talaia
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Luciano Fratocchi: Department of Mechanical Thermal and Managerial Engineering - University of L’Aquila - Italy
Alberto Onetti: Department of Economics, University of Insubria, Italy
Alessia Pisoni: Department of Economics, University of Insubria, Italy
Marco Talaia: Department of Economics, University of Insubria, Italy
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Paolo Paruolo

Economics and Quantitative Methods from Department of Economics, University of Insubria

Abstract: This paper aims at analysing the main features of the activities carried out by the Italian biotech industry. This topic is so wide and various that particularly we decided to focus on the value added activities of the so-called “pharma-biotech”, i.e. pharmaceutical firms that have diversified in the biotech business or pharmaceutical spin-offs. First of all we try to identify the main activities carried out by the studied companies. Particularly, we focus on R&D carried out on biotech, trying to measure its extent both in terms of employees involved and of percentage of total investments. Moreover, we provide a picture of the range of R&D activities performed and the contribution arising from the cooperation with actors in and out of the industry. It is worth pointing out the exploratory scope of this paper that at the present is not yet able to provide through managerial guidelines for decision makers. With this respect, the sample is composed of companies operating in Italy in specific business within the biotech industry. More specifically, in order to reach earlier presented goals, attention was paid on the so called red biotech segment, that is biotech companies which develop drugs and diagnostics. This segment - which is predominant at worldwide level - was further divided accordingly to the adopted business model: born-biotech companies (more focused on R&D activities) and pharma-biotech companies (generally operating also manufacturing and sales activities). The research interest was finally focused on the latter segment, which was divided among pharma-oriented and biotech-oriented companies. The paper is structured in four main sections. In the first one, the most relevant features of biotech firms are discussed on the base of a literature review. In the second paragraph, adopted methodology is presented and sample main characteristics are discussed. In the third section, the main results regarding the localization of R&D activities study carried out on the biotech activities in Italy are presented. The conclusions complete the paper.

Keywords: Biotech; Localization; R&D; MNCs; Value added activities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-09
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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