This paper studies the inventive performance and profitability of small and medium sized firms (SMEs) that are “technology specialists” compared to the inventive performance and profitability of SMEs that are instead vertically-integrated. In this paper perspective, “technology specialists” are firms that specialize upstream in generating inventions and trade those inventions in disembodied for...

The transition from conventional power sources to renewable energy sources is taking place in a number of European countries. Electric energy storage has been proposed as an environmentally friendly solution to make this transition possible. This thesis analyzes the profitability of investing in a battery bank in Germany and the UK, using a real options model. The model determines the option va...

The paper investigates issues of scale equivalence and generalisability across different populations. This area of research is important because it allows for valid comparisons to be made when studies investigate the same constructs across qualitatively distinct populations. The study investigates the generalisability of the Narver and Slater (1990) and the Kholi, Jaworski and Kumar (1993) mode...

While unprotected sexual intercourse and the use of contaminated injection equipment account for the majority of HIV infections worldwide, other routes of HIV transmission have received less attention. We report on a case of HIV transmission attributable to illicit drug market violence involving a participant in a prospective cohort study of injection drug users. Data from a qualitative intervi...

This study shows that R&D cooperations can be used as an instrument to coordinate drug development portfolios among participating firms, which has crucial implications on the number of drugs offered on the market. Our study puts special attention to the fact that R&D cooperations, formed at different stages throughout the drug development process, have different impacts on the technology and pr...

BACKGROUND The Orphan Drug Act (1983) established several incentives to encourage the development of orphan drugs (ODs) to treat rare diseases and conditions. This study analyzed the characteristics of OD designations, approvals, sponsors, and evaluated the effective patent and market exclusivity life of orphan new molecular entities (NMEs) approved in the US between 1983 and 2007. METHODS Pr...

Calls are increasing for manufacturers to provide evidence of comparative efficacy of new drugs at the time of regulatory approval. However, drug manufacturers maintain that doing so would create unrealistically high barriers for market entry and deter innovation. At a time of a perceived productivity crisis in the drug industry, many claim that stricter market authorisation regulation will be ...