Health Systems as Industrial Policy: Building Collaborative Capabilities in the Tanzanian and Kenyan Health Sectors and Their Local Suppliers

A recognition that the demand patterns and investment incentives generated by health care and health policies constitute an ‘implicit’ industrial policy for manufacturers of medicines and medical supplies is not new. In a European context, Thomas (1994) argued that post-1945 UK health care pricing and regulation policies drove a shift to global competitiveness in the locally based pharmaceutical industry, while French post-war health policy did not. Reich (1990) has argued that Japanese success in pharmaceuticals was nurtured, not by the MITI’s industrial policy, but mainly by government regulation and funding of the health sector and manipulation of pharmaceutical pricing.