Health Innovation Processes at the Public-Private Interface

Interaction between private and public organisations is a fundamental source of innovation and a crucial framing condition for reaping the benefits of new technologies through their diffusion in regulated domains. With a focus on the health sector, in this essay we investigate the emergence of one of the most important medical innovations of the last few decades – coronary angioplasty – and try to uncover the dynamics of its emergence at the interface between hospitals, firms and regulatory agencies. We undertake a multi-method study (interviews, inspection of secondary sources and network analysis of bibliometric data) of the origin, development patterns, opportunities and constraints of the new procedure. In the first part, we investigate the entrepreneurial efforts of the pioneers and the seminal interaction between science base, technological know-how and clinical practice....