Developing of the innovative pharmaceutical clusters: Case of Saint Petersburg

Abstract

Description of the goal, tasks and main results Goal: assess the strategy of development of pharmaceutical cluster in St. Petersburg and, based on its current state of development, provide recommendations for its improvement. The main tasks: build a profile of pharmaceutical cluster in St. Petersburg, define its characteristics, stage of development, evaluate competitiveness; based on collected data build a profile of Saint Petersburg pharmaceutical cluster; describe Governmental policy towards development of pharmaceutical cluster in St. Petersburg; critically assess consistency of pharmaceutical cluster development strategy with cluster theory; provide recommendations on improvement of pharmaceutical Saint Petersburg cluster development policy; Main results: 1. St. Petersburg pharmaceutical cluster is policy-driven and developing: narrow, shallow, embraces 145 companies with 13 500 employees, 30 research institutions. Cluster is a mix of firms of different sizes with prevailing medium and small-size enterprises with only limited number of companies has links with the outside cluster world. 2. From the competitiveness point of view cluster is week. Despite the fact that condition factors of pharmaceutical cluster are advanced, other elements of “competitive diamond” like demand conditions, related and supporting industries and firms strategy, structure and rivalry are not enough developed. 3. Government of St. Petersburg developed the “Concept of formation of a cluster of pharmaceutical industry in St. Petersburg” in 2011 as an attempt to take innovative path in development of pharmaceutical industry. Currently cluster is found within Life Science Park cluster, which consists of pharmaceutical, medical and biotechnological cluster. 4. Governmental decisions of horizontal expansion of pharmaceutical cluster in St. Petersburg are seen as inefficient from the point of view of cluster theory since producers of united clusters do not compete and almost do not interact with each other, do not share common technologies and customers. 5. Actions that should be undertaken by government of St. Petersburg in order to encourage development of pharmaceutical cluster: improve the strategy of pharmaceutical cluster development by stimulating of competition (attraction of competing firms to St.Petersburg, organization of competitions and grants, etc.) and increasing of innovative attractiveness of pharmaceutical industry in St. Petersburg (“competitive dimond” element – improvement of infrastructure and business climate); split Life Science Park cluster into 3 separate clusters; use rationally lands for cluster purposes – expand the cluster to the territories of St. Petersburg region; stimulate the developing of provisions on state procurement procedures by public health agencies of St. Petersburg in order to limit price auctions; interact with members of cluster on regular basis.