Spatial Scales, Proximity and Institutional Logics : Outline of an Evolutionary Approach of Technological Change Dynamics in Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology (Echelles spatiales, formes de proximite et logiques institutionnelles: Esquisse d'une approche co-evolutionnaire des dynamiques de changement technologique dans la pharmacie et les biotechnologies)

This paper sketches a co-evolutionary model of the change dynamics characterizing industries submitted to radical transformation of their technological-institutional-economic structures. These structural changes take place within a rather long-term dynamics of innovation whose trajectory and inflection points are guided, temporally and spatially, by the interdependency, the embeddedness and the co-evolution of the technological, industrial and environmental factors specific to this industry. Firstly, we show how the environmental dimensions (particularly the spatial, institutional and financial ones) of the industry are closely and dynamically inter-related. Secondly, we examine how these dimensions co-evolve with the technological and industrial dynamics of the industry. Finally, drawing from the Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology case, we try to explain why the "techno-industrial" dynamics which characterized the evolution of this industry over the past fifty years have been displaying relatively discontinuous trajectories, both over time and in space