The Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Underdevelopmen

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Despite adopting macroeconomic reforms designed toimprove the diffusion of technologies and adoption of newideas, technological innovation has remained limited inSouth Africa. Consider innovation in the pharmaceutical andlife sciences sectors. Hailed as the largest manufacturer inthe continent, South Africa has long had the ambition to beindependent in its pharmaceutical production. Yet itcontinues to channel funds towards the Global North,importing between 70-90% of essential medicines. In thisresearch project, I will look to uncover why and how this is,examining how economic policies such as strengthenedintellectual property laws, fiscal restraint, and tradeliberalisation have shaped the development of thepharmaceutical sector within South Africa.The project will adopt a mixed methods approach deliveredthrough two phases. I will first conduct a historical study ofSouth Africa's post-apartheid transition, focussing on itseconomic reforms, before conducting a set of detailed casestudies. Each focussing on a specific disease area, the casestudies will explore how the economic reforms highlightedin the first phase have conditioned scientific attempts todevelop essential medicines; policy options; and the abilityof local industry to respond. In this way, the project willdevelop a causal account of how macroeconomic policyshapes pharmaceutical underdevelopment in the GlobalSouth.