Introduction: why apply industrial policy to the health industry?

An important goal of most insutrialized countries is to promote its high-technology sectors, such as aerospace, pharmaceuticals, biotech, and telecommunication. These countries fear being left behind in the race for supremacy in each of these fields. An imporetant issue facing any country desiring to compete is the appropriate role of government in these efforts. Many countries have a long tradition of promoting favoured industries in Europe and Asia, such as Italy, France, Germany, Japan and Korea. The USA has less of an explicit attitude toward this policy. Nonetheless, even the USA has engaged in strong government-supported industrial assistance programmes in a reas including aerospace, aircraft, computer chips and flat display screens. Approaches are often less direct than those in Europe and Sia, but they are no less strong.