An Investigation in Technological Capability of Iranian Biopharmaceutical Firms

Assessing technological capability is one of the prerequisites for designing technology development strategies and policies. Therefore, this article aims to evaluate the technological capability of biopharmaceutical companies in Iran using the Technological Capability Audit Tool (TCAT). For this purpose, the TCAT questionnaire is used and sent to 18 companies. The results of the analysis of the questionnaires showe that Iranian biopharmaceutical companies are in the "strategic" stage of 4 levels of technological capability. The results also showe that among the 9 dimensions of capability, companies are in a good position in terms of "awareness" dimension, and the most important obstacle in moving towards creative capability is their weakness in networking and using the capacity of other companies and external institutions to improve production capacity and develop technological capability. In addition, the weakness of domestic firms in cooperating with each other is due to the weaknesses of the culture of cooperation, the lack of a proper intellectual property system and also the problems in the country's trade law that make it difficult for firms to merge and acquire (M&A).