IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0082609.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Food-Pharma Convergence in Medical Nutrition– Best of Both Worlds?

Author

Listed:
  • Tamar C Weenen
  • Bahar Ramezanpour
  • Esther S Pronker
  • Harry Commandeur
  • Eric Claassen

Abstract

At present, industries within the health and life science sector are moving towards one another resulting in new industries such as the medical nutrition industry. Medical nutrition products are specific nutritional compositions for intervention in disease progression and symptom alleviation. Industry convergence, described as the blurring of boundaries between industries, plays a crucial role in the shaping of new markets and industries. Assuming that the medical nutrition industry has emerged from the convergence between the food and pharma industries, it is crucial to research how and which distinct industry domains have contributed to establish this relatively new industry. The first two stages of industry convergence (knowledge diffusion and consolidation) are measured by means of patent analysis. First, the extent of knowledge diffusion within the medical nutrition industry is graphed in a patent citation interrelations network. Subsequently the consolidation based on technological convergence is determined by means of patent co-classification. Furthermore, the medical nutrition core domain and technology interrelations are measured by means of a cross impact analysis. This study proves that the medical nutrition industry is a result of food and pharma convergence. It is therefore crucial for medical nutrition companies to effectively monitor technological developments within as well as across industry boundaries. This study further reveals that although the medical nutrition industry’s core technology domain is food, technological development is mainly driven by pharmaceutical/pharmacological technologies Additionally, the results indicate that the industry has surpassed the knowledge diffusion stage of convergence, and is currently in the consolidation phase of industry convergence. Nevertheless, while the medical nutrition can be classified as an industry in an advanced phase of convergence, one cannot predict that the pharma and food industry segments will completely converge or whether the medical industry will become an individual successful industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Tamar C Weenen & Bahar Ramezanpour & Esther S Pronker & Harry Commandeur & Eric Claassen, 2013. "Food-Pharma Convergence in Medical Nutrition– Best of Both Worlds?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0082609
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082609
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082609
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0082609&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0082609?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Manuel Trajtenberg, 1990. "A Penny for Your Quotes: Patent Citations and the Value of Innovations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 21(1), pages 172-187, Spring.
    2. Nick Johnstone & Ivan Haščič & David Popp, 2010. "Renewable Energy Policies and Technological Innovation: Evidence Based on Patent Counts," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 45(1), pages 133-155, January.
    3. Hu, Albert G. Z. & Jaffe, Adam B., 2003. "Patent citations and international knowledge flow: the cases of Korea and Taiwan," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 21(6), pages 849-880, June.
    4. Nemet, Gregory F. & Johnson, Evan, 2012. "Do important inventions benefit from knowledge originating in other technological domains?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 190-200.
    5. Suzuki, Jun & Kodama, Fumio, 2004. "Technological diversity of persistent innovators in Japan: Two case studies of large Japanese firms," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 531-549, April.
    6. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2001. "The NBER Patent Citation Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools," NBER Working Papers 8498, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 1999. "International Knowledge Flows: Evidence From Patent Citations," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1-2), pages 105-136.
    8. Geert Duysters & John Hagedoorn, 1998. "Technological Convergence in the IT Industry: The Role of Strategic Technology Alliances and Technological Competencies," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 355-368.
    9. Bossink, Bart A.G., 2004. "Managing drivers of innovation in construction networks," Serie Research Memoranda 0015, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    10. Blackman, Michael, 1995. "Provision of patent information: a national patent office perspective," World Patent Information, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 115-123, June.
    11. Ruslan Lukach & Joseph Plasmans, 2002. "Measuring Knowledge Spillovers Using Patent Citations: Evidence from the Belgian Firm's Data," CESifo Working Paper Series 754, CESifo.
    12. Breschi, Stefano & Lissoni, Francesco & Malerba, Franco, 2003. "Knowledge-relatedness in firm technological diversification," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 69-87, January.
    13. Dahlin, Kristina B. & Behrens, Dean M., 2005. "When is an invention really radical?: Defining and measuring technological radicalness," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 717-737, June.
    14. Kristina Dahlin & Deans M. Behrens, 2005. "When is an invention really radical? Defining and measuring technological radicalness," Post-Print hal-00480416, HAL.
    15. D. Thorleuchter & D. Van Den Poel & A. Prinzie & -, 2010. "A compared R&D-based and patent-based cross impact analysis for identifying relationships between technologies," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 10/632, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    16. Csárdi, Gábor & Strandburg, Katherine J. & Zalányi, László & Tobochnik, Jan & Érdi, Péter, 2007. "Modeling innovation by a kinetic description of the patent citation system," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 374(2), pages 783-793.
    17. Xiaolin Shi & Lada A Adamic & Belle L Tseng & Gavin S Clarkson, 2009. "The Impact of Boundary Spanning Scholarly Publications and Patents," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(8), pages 1-7, August.
    18. Katz, Michael L, 1996. "Remarks on the Economic Implications of Convergence," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 5(4), pages 1079-1095.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seh-Hyun Yoo & Chang-Yang Lee, 2023. "Technological diversification, technology portfolio properties, and R&D productivity," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 2074-2105, December.
    2. Jan M. Gerken & Martin G. Moehrle, 2012. "A new instrument for technology monitoring: novelty in patents measured by semantic patent analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 91(3), pages 645-670, June.
    3. Yuandi Wang & Xiongfeng Pan & Yantai Chen & Xin Gu, 2013. "Do references in transferred patent documents signal learning opportunities for the receiving firms?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 95(2), pages 731-752, May.
    4. Barbieri, Nicolò & Marzucchi, Alberto & Rizzo, Ugo, 2020. "Knowledge sources and impacts on subsequent inventions: Do green technologies differ from non-green ones?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(2).
    5. Adam B. Jaffe & Gaétan de Rassenfosse, 2017. "Patent citation data in social science research: Overview and best practices," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(6), pages 1360-1374, June.
    6. Fernández, Ana María & Ferrándiz, Esther & Medina, Jennifer, 2022. "The diffusion of energy technologies. Evidence from renewable, fossil, and nuclear energy patents," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    7. Nemet, Gregory F., 2012. "Inter-technology knowledge spillovers for energy technologies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1259-1270.
    8. Su, Hsin-Ning & Moaniba, Igam M., 2017. "Investigating the dynamics of interdisciplinary evolution in technology developments," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 12-23.
    9. Lee, Changyong & Cho, Yangrae & Seol, Hyeonju & Park, Yongtae, 2012. "A stochastic patent citation analysis approach to assessing future technological impacts," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 16-29.
    10. Manuel Acosta & Daniel Coronado & Esther Ferrándiz & Manuel Jiménez, 2022. "Effects of knowledge spillovers between competitors on patent quality: what patent citations reveal about a global duopoly," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 47(5), pages 1451-1487, October.
    11. Carolina Castaldi & Bart Los, 2008. "The identification of important innovations using tail estimators," Innovation Studies Utrecht (ISU) working paper series 08-07, Utrecht University, Department of Innovation Studies, revised Feb 2008.
    12. Feng Zhang & Guohua Jiang, 2019. "Combination of Complementary Technological Knowledge to Generate “Hard to Imitate” Technologies," Journal of Information & Knowledge Management (JIKM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(02), pages 1-24, June.
    13. Martin Kalthaus, 2020. "Knowledge recombination along the technology life cycle," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 643-704, July.
    14. Altwies, Joy E. & Nemet, Gregory F., 2013. "Innovation in the U.S. building sector: An assessment of patent citations in building energy control technology," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 819-831.
    15. Joëlle Noailly & Victoria Shestalova, 2013. "Knowledge spillovers from renewable energy technologies, Lessons from patent citations," CPB Discussion Paper 262, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    16. Park, Jongyong & Lee, Hakyeon & Park, Yongtae, 2009. "Disembodied knowledge flows among industrial clusters: A patent analysis of the Korean manufacturing sector," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 73-84.
    17. Kolja Hesse & Dirk Fornahl, 2020. "Essential ingredients for radical innovations? The role of (un‐)related variety and external linkages in Germany," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(5), pages 1165-1183, October.
    18. Joelle Noailly & Victoria Shestalova, 2013. "Knowledge Spillovers from Renewable energy Technologies, Lessons from patent citations," CIES Research Paper series 22-2013, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.
    19. Ron Boschma & Ernest Miguelez & Rosina Moreno & Diego B. Ocampo-Corrales, 2021. "Technological breakthroughs in European regions: the role of related and unrelated combinations," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2118, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jun 2021.
    20. Soonwoo Kwon & Jihong Lee & Sokbae (Simon) Lee, 2014. "International trends in technological progress: stylized facts from patent citations, 1980-2011," CeMMAP working papers CWP16/14, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0082609. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.