Norway's Pharmaceutical Revolution

Pursuing and Accomplishing Innovation in Nyegaard & Co., 1945-1997
Erscheinungsjahr 2022
ISBN: 978-0-19-286900-5
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 567 g

The pharmaceutical revolution that gathered pace in the 1930s delivered a plethora of almost magical new drugs such as penicillin, streptomycin, cortisone, and the birth control pill. This revolution grew from academic-business relationships in five countries: USA, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, and France. Many other countries tried and failed to replicate this success, yet a handful of Scandinavia companies made important breakthroughs in a narrow band of specialities. This is the story of how one Norwegian company-- Nyegaard & Co. --achieved international success from the 1970s onwards with a breakthrough product facilitating X-ray pictures of the soft tissues of the body. The company succeeded by harnessing research skills and creating scientific and business alliances abroad, building its own momentum step by step: the corporation as entrepreneur. It thereby broke with the conventional way a national medical ecosystem facilitated the crucial scientific progress. This is a story both of personal initiatives and great organizational transformations in several stages. In the 1950s, Nyegaard & Co. was a small hierarchical home market-oriented generics company. By the end of the 1990s, it had developed into a fairly large and multinational hierarchical company, preoccupied as much with shareholder value as scientific progress. It has also become a company that no longer had the same ability to innovate as before and therefore became merged into another one.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sogner, Knut

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Unternehmensgeschichte, Einzelne Branchen und Unternehmer
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Betriebswirtschaft Management Forschung & Entwicklung (F&E), Innovation
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Fertigungsindustrie Pharmaindustrie

Über Autor(innen)

Knut Sogner is Professor of economic history at BI Norwegian Business School. His PhD thesis won the 1998 European Business History Association's award for best doctoral thesis, and he has published in leading business history journals and in several international edited books, including many publications in Norwegian.