Does Public Scientific Research Complement Industry R&D Investment? The Case of NIH Supported Basic and Clinical Research and Pharmaceutical Industry R&D

Andrew A. Toole

No 05-75, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: This research investigates the hypothesis that publicly funded scientific research complements private R&D investment in the pharmaceutical industry. New microlevel data on public research investment by the U.S. National Institutes of Health allow measures of basic and clinical research in seven medical areas to be included in a distributed lag model explaining pharmaceutical R&D investment. Using a panel of therapeutic classes observed over eighteen years, the analysis finds strong evidence that public basic and clinical research are complementary to pharmaceutical R&D and, thereby, stimulate private industry investment. However, differences in the relevance and degree of scientific and market uncertainty between basic and clinical public research lead to differences in the magnitude and timing of the pharmaceutical investment response. The results indicate that a dollar increase in public basic research stimulates an additional $8.38 in pharmaceutical investment after eight years. The industry R&D response to public clinical research is smaller in magnitude and shorter in duration with a dollar increase in public clinical research stimulating an additional $2.35 in pharmaceutical investment over a three year period.

Keywords: R&D; pharmaceuticals; NIH; distributed lag models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 H51 L65 O32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/24171/1/dp0575.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:4558

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().