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An. R. Acad. Nac. Farm., 2010, 76 (4): 459-478

REVISIÓN

Innovation vs. tradition: the election of an
european way toward pharmaceutical
industrialisation, 19th-20th centuries

Antonio González Bueno1,*, Raúl Rodríguez Nozal2

1 Departamento de Farmacia y Tecnología Farmacéutica. Facultad de Far-
macia. Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
2 Departamento de Ciencias Sanitarias y Médico-Sociales. Facultad de
Medicina. Universidad de Alcalá.
Recibido el 14 de octubre de 2010.

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses the scientific and technological factors that
coincided in the beginning and in the initial development of the phar-
maceutical industry in Europe. Having pointed out the reasons that
favoured the initial success of the German chemical pharmaceutical
industry, we evaluate the efforts of other countries to occupy the lead-
ership of this industrial sector: from the British trials of business con-
centration to all the strength of the Swiss as a neutral nation in con-
flicts of war; a special tractor will be dedicated to the study of the
penetration of German industry in France, in particular, in the sys-
tems invented by German manufacturers to violate the French pro-
tectionist legislation. In concluding, we describe the two industrial-
ization models followed by the pharmaceutical industry during the
decades of change of the 19th-20th centuries. We evaluate and explain
the social, economic, cultural and, above all, scientific-technical rea-
sons that defined both and discuss the motives that led to the current
situation of leadership of the central European model in the pharma-
ceutical sector.

Keywords: Pharmaceutical industry; history; Europe.

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