An exploratory assessment of the gaps for health innovation in Brazil: challenges and a proposed research agenda

Abstract

Policies and health actions generate benefits that extrapolate the specificity of its purpose of providing welfare for the population, given its recognized impact in generating technological innovations, employment and income. However, such progress levels are unevenly distributed in countries, so that certain diseases and allocative and ethical questions associated with the development of new mechanisms for diagnosis, of treatment and cure did not find satisfactory answers yet. In Brazil, such a scenario has not been shown different, demanding a wider discussion encompassing the country's economic and social conditions. Contrasting the analytical and empirical results observed in policies and actions toward the Health Economic-Industrial Complex (CEIS) to establish the barriers as well as structural and economic opportunities for the promotion of health innovations in Brazil, this work raises a number of critical considerations in view of identifying and systematizing gaps in health innovation in the country, thereby proposing a positive comprehensive research agenda on the topic.