Innovation Cultures in Developing Countries: The Case of Health Biotechnology

Innovation culture is synonymous in many people's minds with industrially advanced countries. Several developing countries have, however, singled out health biotechnology and attempted to promote indigenous innovation in the field. This essay will discuss case studies on health-biotechnology innovation in seven developing countries: Brazil, China, Cuba, Egypt, India, South Africa, and South Korea. All have scientific and technological capacity in the health-biotechnology field; they represent different parts of the world and present significant differences in income levels and population size. We will start by briefly reviewing the literature on the transfer of technology for promoting development to provide a general context for examining health-biotechnology development in these countries. We will then discuss in detail the comparative case studies on health-biotechnology innovation in these seven developing countries and explore their successes, discuss the main characteristics of the innovation in these countries, and delineate lessons on how they have been able to foster such innovation. [End Page 178]