The Role of Pharmaceutical Alliances

Alliances in business have a long history, but over the past couple of decades they have become an important feature of business organisation to such an extent that Dunning, a prominent researcher of multinational enterprises since the 1950's, has described this new trend which gives increased emphasis to cooperation as well as competition between firms as 'alliance' capitalism. In his view this has been brought about by globalisation and a series of landmark technological advances (Dunning 1995). The pharmaceutical industry provides a good example of these developments. It has been subject to rapid technological change and significant restructuring. Pharmaceutical companies have been a prominent agent of globalisation, partly through international mergers but just as importantly in establishing global sales programs for their products. In addition the pharmaceutical industry, in which R&D is a core activity, has experienced breakthrough technological advances in biotechnology