New Report: Brazil Able to Compete in Medical Innovation

PR Log (Press Release) – Jul 16, 2009 – The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) applauds the new report “Innovation in Brazil: Public Policies and Business Strategies,” which is based on several seminars organized by the Brazil Institute at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.  The report concludes that Brazil has made progress regarding its drug innovation policy and is capable of competing in medical innovation.

A full overview of the report by O Estado de São Paulo correspondent  Renato Cruz is below:

Brazil has made progress regarding its innovation policies, according to Ricardo Sennes, managing partner of the consulting firm Prospectiva and author of the report “Innovation in Brazil: Public Policies and Business Strategies. “Brazil is able to play the international game to attract innovation investments”, argued the consultant at a seminar held at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado (Faap).
Sennes defines an innovation policy aim as “the systematic building of an integrated environment of incentives capable of providing the systematic application of knowledge in the economic activities”, including processes, products and services. “The Brazilian innovation policy is still too much focused on tangible products.”
The report is based on a series of seminars organized by the Brazil Institute at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “The innovation policy must be integrated to an international market strategy,” argued Sennes.
Patent registration is one of the indicators that measures innovation. According to the report, the Brazilian companies that have registered the most patents are those that operate in the international market, such as Petrobras, Usiminas, Vale and CSN (Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional). “The companies that play the global game have no option”, said Sennes. “They either invest or they are out of the market.”  
Sennes believes that Brazil is missing the opportunity to attract research and development (R&D) centers of foreign companies.
“Most of the Chinese patents are not developed by Chinese companies,” the consultant said. Attracting R&D centers would have greater impact on the Brazilian economic growth than attracting industrial plants, as R&D centers generate more qualified jobs and a favorable environment for local innovative companies to emerge.
“The innovation policy should be focused on companies and not on universities, R&D centers and researchers,” Sennes argued. In countries like Germany, China, South Korea and the United States, companies are largely responsible for the greatest share of  R&D investment. This is not the case in Brazil, as the universities concentrate most part of the investments. “There is clearly a problem of resources allocation.”
TOOLS
Brazil has already created key tools to implement its innovation policy, according to the consultant. “Brazil is not unarmed to create a policy, what it lacks is coordination,” he said.
Sennes pointed out that in Brazil there are institutions that promote innovation, such as Finep, BNDES and the sectorial funds, a regulatory framework (the Law of Innovation and the Law of Goods), public policies such as the Productive Development Policy launched last year and a coordination agency (the Brazilian Industrial Development Agency). “Finding these instruments in Latin American countries is rare.”
According to Sennes, nowadays innovation is generated from partnerships between the companies and its net of clients and suppliers, and between the company and the universities and research centers. He defended a broader stimulus to innovation, in order to avoid benefits only to selected areas.