Pharmaceutical Innovation: Revolutionizing Human Health (review)

Pharmaceutical Innovation: Revolutionizing Human Health. Edited by Ralph Landau, Basil Achilladelis, and Alexander Scriabine. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Press, 1999. Pp. xxiii+408. $44.95.

This book sets out to explore the historical evolution of the pharmaceutical industry over the last 150 years, identifying the major discoveries and evaluating them in terms of their scientific novelty, their economic value, and their significance for human health. Its main focus is on the second half of the twentieth century, when the pace of innovation in the industry has been most rapid. In that time frame the large U.S. corporations--based in the world's largest pharmaceutical market, and in the last two decades increasingly global in character--have dominated the industry and enjoyed a national innovative advantage, so inevitably they claim the most attention.

There are six chapters. In his introduction, Ralph Landau notes that "Most of this book is contained in its first two chapters" (p. xiii) and, indeed, the first chapter, Basil Achilladelis's on innovation in the industry, and the second, Alexander Scriabine's on discovery and development of major drugs currently in use, together represent three-quarters of the entire text. Still, the content of the other four shorter chapters is of considerable significance. These are Scriabine's summary of the role of biotechnology in drug development; the pharmaceutical taxonomy developed by Landau and others, and which they claim represents "an informed consensus as to the technically and commercially most significant drugs developed by this industry" (p. 299); Iain Cockburn and Rebecca Henderson's analysis of the economics of drug development; and, finally, Christopher Flowers and Kenneth Melman's case study of the innovations developed from research on purine and pyrimidine analogs.

The scale and scope of Achilladelis's chapter is large enough for a book in itself, and, inevitably perhaps, some aspects of the topic are slighted. For one, the examination of corporate technological traditions veers toward the superficial, with little in the way of documentation. This brings me to an important criticism. While each chapter has a list of sources, there are no specific references, and this severely limits the utility of the text. From the perspective of a historian in the United Kingdom, there are a number of factual errors--the Medical Research Council, for example, was established in 1913, not 1927, and the government was not instrumental in the founding of the Therapeutic Research Council in 1942, as is suggested on page 86. Without references it is not possible to see how these errors crept in. There are also significant omissions from the lists of sources.

Finally, a full perspective on the industry would require a larger treatment of markets. Supply may be global but demand remains national, structured by national health care, medical practice, and regulatory systems that do impact on innovation.

Despite these criticisms, much is accomplished in this book. The pharmaceutical industry has been insufficiently studied across the world, more so in Europe than in the United States. The frameworks set forth here offer a way forward to a greater understanding of the industry, and it is much to be hoped that they will be refined and built upon by scholars in the future.

Judy Slinn

Dr. Slinn teaches strategy and business history at the Business School, Oxford Brookes University. She has published histories of May and Baker, Glaxo (with R. Davenport-Hines), and Abbott Laboratories in the United Kingdom.

Permission to reprint a review published here may be obtained only from the reviewer.

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