Bio-pharma hub development in global production networks: contrasting state policies and conjunctural value strategies

ABSTRACT Advances in conjunctural analysis and insights into global production networks (GPNs) are used to examine the ways policymakers develop bio-pharma development strategies to manage the trade-offs between economic value capture and securing value for health. Four strategic state roles are identified – provision, protection, procurement and production – all shown to be recombined in conjuncture-contingent ways. Case studies of California’s Bay Area, Puerto Rico’s Bio-Island, China’s Greater Bay Area, Singapore’s Biopolis and South Africa’s mRNA Hub in Cape Town illustrate how each regional conjuncture leads to recombinations of the roles in ways that reflect the connected but also competing and contested strategies for securing economic value vis-à-vis health value. The resulting variegation of development makes manifest policy struggles that continue to complicate the meanings of strategic coupling and value in hubs of bio-pharma GPNs.