Economies of Scale in Experimentation: Knowledge and Technology in Pharmaceutical R&D

Paul Nightingale

Industrial and Corporate Change, 2000, vol. 9, issue 2, 315-59

Abstract: This paper explores how changes in genetics, database, high-throughput screening and bioinformatics technologies have allowed pharmaceutical firms to exploit economies of scale in experimentation. Traditional craft-based, sequential experimentation in chemistry and biology has been complemented by firstly, the automated, mass-production analysis of populations and secondly, by "in silico" experimentation using simulations and databases. The changes are analysed within a Chandlerian framework that highlights how increases in the "throughput" of R&D are dependent on organizational and managerial responses to systemic uncertainty. Copyright 2000 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 2000
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