Taxation as an Enabling Environment for International Competitiveness and Drug Discovery in the Pharmaceutical Industry The Contribution of the Domestic Pharmaceutical Industry to the Structural Transformation to a High Value-Added Economy
Masaru Nagasawa (Chief Researcher, Pharmaceutical and Industrial Policy Research Institute)
(No.52: Published in March 2012)
Japan's domestic pharmaceutical industry is a knowledge-intensive, high-value-added industry that represents Japan and has the potential to realize a "business model for growth" that contributes to people around the world through innovation through research and development, and then returns the results to Japan to lead to further innovation. The industry has the potential to realize a "growth business model" that contributes to the people of the world by realizing innovation through research and development, and returns the results to Japan for further innovation. Therefore, the domestic pharmaceutical industry is expected to play a leading role in the transition to a knowledge-intensive, high-value-added economy, which is necessary for the Japanese economy to achieve sustainable growth in an environment of resource constraints, declining birthrates, an aging population, and competition from emerging countries.
In order for the domestic pharmaceutical industry to meet these expectations, it is essential to improve and strengthen the domestic drug discovery environment as well as the industry's own efforts. Taxation is an important policy tool for making Japan an attractive place for drug discovery.
In particular, in order to promote advanced industries such as the pharmaceutical industry that generate high added value by utilizing intellectual assets as resources, and to make the business model of growth based on innovation take root in Japan, it is important to have an R&D promotion tax system that directly stimulates R&D investment and an intellectual property tax incentive system that encourages the creation and accumulation of intellectual assets. The taxation of intellectual property is also important to promote the creation and accumulation of intellectual assets.