Micro data analysis about the impact of policy-induced change in competitive environment on innovation

1998年，日本审查新药的制度发生了巨大变化，倾向于利用国外进行的临床试验的结果。在这一制度变革后，可以提前在国外进行临床试验的外国公司变得不那么依赖与日本制药公司的合作开发。国外公司参与项目时，合作药物开发的成功概率较高。这一较高的成功率主要是因为他们适当地选择了合作伙伴，而不是他们的优势，即他们可以提前在国外完成临床试验，从而抢占先机。

In 1998, the Japanese system of reviewing new ethical drugs has drastically changed in favor of exploiting the results from clinical trials conducted abroad. After this institutional change, foreign companies, who can conduct clinical trials abroad in advance, became less dependent on cooperative development with Japanese pharmaceutical companies. Success probability of cooperative drug development is higher when foreign companies participated in the project. This higher rate of success is mainly due to their appropriate choice of cooperating partners, rather than their advantage that they can get a head start by finalizing clinical trials abroad in advance.