Strategies of Technology Accumulation by Indian Pharmaceutical Firms: A Multinomial Logit Analysis

Driven by technological race, the survival of the firms largely depends upon the technological proximity they possess. Evolutionary theories emphasized that ‘technology’ is a source of growth and its accumulation is a continuous and path-dependent process that require specific and strategic policies. The hypothesis of the article is, thus that ‘both investments in indigenous research and development (R&D) and royalty payments’ are the dominant sources of technology accumulation in the successful firms. For the analysis, the case study of Indian pharmaceutical industry was done for the period from 2000 to 2011 and the multinomial logit model is used for the analysis. However, both the descriptive and econometric analysis refute the hypothesis. Further, the article tried to estimate the dominant choice of technology accumulation in the sector and to find the characteristics of the firms that lead it to make those specific choices.