Sources of Medical Technology Universities and Industry (1995) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
9 PERSPECTIVES ON INDUSTRIAL R&D MANAGEMENT
9 PERSPECTIVES ON INDUSTRIAL R&D MANAGEMENT
Pages 209-218
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 209... ...
There are two principal difficulties: first, the immense diversity of the industries that generate medical technology and, second, the drastic changes that are occurring in those industries as a consequence of the ongoing restructuring of American health care itself. The principal industrial segments that develop and supply medical technology include large, generally multinational, pharmaceutical firms; the more than 1,000, mostly very small, venture-type firms that make up the biotechnology industry; both large and small firms that provide diagnostic tests and reagents; medical instrument divisions of large, diversified manufacturing firms; and the many, mostly smaller, specialized medical device firms.
|
From page 210... ...
But the dramatic, recent changes in the structure of American health care represent one highly visible, and very potent, force that is impacting R&D in every sector of the health care technology industry. The earlier volumes of the Medical Innovation at the Crossroads series, beginning with the first in 1990, have documented, and in several cases anticipated, the effects of the changing health care market upon technology suppliers.
|
From page 211... ...
in the biotechnology industry; sharply depressed stock prices of pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device firms for the past two years (Read and Lee, 1994~; the reduced flow of new equity capital into the biotechnology and medical device industries (Littell, 1994; Read and Lee, 1994~; and personnel cutbacks and downsizing reported by numerous firms in the health care technology industries. Most of the changes related above are too recent to have had an observable effect on the level of R&D activity in the affected industries.
|
From page 212... ...
The criteria that the new health care marketplace establishes for acceptance of technology will define the targets for research in the health care technology firm. Since the market prizes cost-saving technology, R&D will seek to reduce the cost of existing technologies; will seek to replace costly technologies with more economical alternatives; and will carry out cost-effectiveness studies to make the economic case for the acceptance of their technologies.
|
From page 213... ...
. THE EVOLVING SCIENCE BASE The cases presented in earlier chapters illustrate that the science base underlying medical devices and instrumentation substantially resides in science-based industries outside of the medical field.
|
From page 214... ...
Perhaps the landmark case of this genre was the work of George Hitchings, Gertrude Elion, and their colleagues, who tenaciously pursued the idea that by systematically interfering with the then newly elucidated biochemical steps involved in nucleic acid biosynthesis, useful therapeutic agents could be found. Their faith was richly rewarded by the discovery of several new medicines-including the anticancer drug 6-mercaptopurine, the immune suppressant azathioprine, and the antibacterial trimethoprim, each the first of its kind and by the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 (Elton, 1988; Hitchings, 1988; Melmon and Flowers, 1993)
|
From page 215... ...
A variety of other prospectively powerful research approaches are being explored gene therapy is one that, if successful, promise virtually direct translation of basic research findings into therapeutic applications (Schwartz, 1994~. CLINICAL EVALUATION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES The efficiency of the development process for therapeutic technologies based on biology represents a separate and significant issue in R&D management.
|
From page 216... ...
Large health care delivery firms, with their vast data bases and captive patient populations, are excellently positioned to undertake evaluative research on medical technologies, and some of them are increasingly doing so. Since much present-day medical technology is both costly and limited in its effectiveness, health care providers in today's competitive environment should be strongly motivated to be leaders in seeking out, and adopting, superior technologies.
|
From page 217... ...
Health care innovation: Progress report and focus on biotechnology. Heal th Affairs 13 (3 ~ :215-225.
|
From page 218... ...
3. Technology and Health Care in an Era of Limits.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.