The expediency of cluster policy in pharmaceutical industry of Russia: An exploratory study

Abstract

Th e paper aims to study pharmaceutical clusters in Russia, which are supported by the state within the framework of the program for fi nancing pilot innovative territorial clusters. Th e research question of the investigation is to test the hypothesis that the existing concentrations of the pharmaceutical companies included in the support program are indeed clusters and thus they are susceptible to cluster policy measures. To answer this question a method of analyzing the networks of the enterprise groups under consideration was used. Th e data on company owners and contracts between the enterprises were taken from the SPARK database. Based on these data, networks were built refl ecting economic relations between pharmaceutical concentration enterprises, as well as co-ownership relations. Networks were examined for homogeneity, fragmentation and centrality of nodes. It was found that in many regions pharmaceutical companies have few economic ties within the group and at the same time are connected by common owners. Following the results of the analysis of the constructed networks, it was concluded that the pharmaceutical industry in the regions in question tends rather to be monopolized than have strong clusters of independent companies. In connection with such conditions, to promote a further development of the industry, it seems more justifi ed to apply antitrust, rather than cluster policies. Th e value of the paper is that no research of Russian cluster networks has been done before.