The Political Economy of Pharmaceutical Underdevelopmen

尽管南非通过了旨在促进技术传播和采用新技术的宏观经济改革，但南非的技术创新仍然有限。考虑一下制药和生命科学领域的创新。南非被誉为非洲大陆最大的制造商，长期以来一直雄心勃勃地想要独立于其药品生产。然而，它继续向全球北方输送资金，进口70%-90%的基本药物。在这个研究项目中，我将试图揭示这是为什么以及如何发生的，研究加强知识产权法、财政紧缩和贸易审议等经济政策是如何影响南非制药行业的发展的。该项目将采用混合方法，分两个阶段实施。我将首先对南非种族隔离后的过渡进行历史研究，重点放在其经济改革上，然后进行一系列详细的案例研究。每个案例研究都集中在一个特定的疾病领域，将探索第一阶段中强调的经济改革如何制约开发基本药物的科学尝试、政策选择以及当地工业的应对能力。通过这种方式，该项目将建立一个因果关系，说明宏观经济政策如何影响全球南部的医药欠发达。

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.